=*  r 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

A  MANUAL  FOR  THE  RURAL  JOURNALIST 

AND  FOR  STUDENTS  OF  THE 

COUNTRY  FIELD 


BY 
PHIL    C.    BING 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF  JOURNALISM 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MINNESOTA 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1917 


Copyright,  1917,  bt 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO 

MY  FATHER 

AND 

MY  MOTHER 


3768 1 3 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Cdrporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/countryweeklyOObingrich 


PREFACE 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  open  the  whole 
subject  of  the  problems  and  possibilities  of  the  country 
field.  It  is  written  to  show  the  journalistic  neophyte 
that  there  are  chances  in  the  country  field  which  are 
worth  while  from  every  point  of  view.  It  is  written, 
too,  to  suggest  plans  and  possibilities  to  men  who  are 
already  in  the  field;  to  encourage  a  vigorous  effort 
among  country  editors  to  do  their  utmost  to  make 
country  journalism  a  bigger,  more  vital  thing  than 
it  has  heretofore  been. 

It  is  not  the  author's  purpose  to  present  this  manual 
as  a  definitive,  authoritative  guide.  The  newer  aspects 
of  country  journalism  are  so  imperfectly  compre- 
hended, the  technic  so  far  from  standardized  that  no 
one  could  hope  to  present  a  wholly  scientific  treatise. 
If  the  book  arouses  discussion,  if  it  induces  thought, 
if  it  presents  the  problems  of  the  country  field,  it  will 
amply  have  achieved  its  purpose. 

The  chapter  on  cost  finding  is  an  attempt  to  show : 
(i)  the  need  of  a  reliable  cost  system  in  country 
ofiices;  and  (2)  the  comparative  simplicity  of  such  a 
system.  Actual  filled-in  forms  from  a  country  shop 
are  reproduced  and  discussed  in  order  to  make  the 
explanation  clear.  It  is  not  claimed  that  the  figures 
giveu  are  correct.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are 
incorrect  in  some  instances,  for  they  were  taken  soon 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

after  the  system  was  installed.  After  the  system 
has  been  in  operation  a  few  months,  the  results  are 
more  reliable.  The  figures  given,  however,  serve  to 
illustrate  the  points  of  the  system.  In  the  explanation 
of  the  various  blanks  it  was  thought  advisable  to 
follow  closely  the  explanation  given  in  the  booklet 
of  instructions  which  accompanies  the  cost-finding 
blanks,  in  order  that  the  matter  might  be  official. 

The  author  gratefully  acknowledges  the  invaluable 
assistance  and  helpful  criticism  of  Willard  Grosvenor 
Bleyer  and  Grant  Milnor  Hyde  of  the  department  of 
journalism  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 

The  University  of  Minnesota, 
Minneapolis. 


CONTENTS 

I         CHAPTER  PAGE 

/     I.    The  Country  Weekly  and  Its  Problems       .        .        i 
J^  Problems  of  the  country  weekly. 

II.  Local  News i6 

<t  News  in  the  country  weekly ;  Gathering  the  news ; 

J)^  ^      Writing  the  news;  Structure;  Style;  News  policy; 
Suggestions. 

III.  County  Correspondence        .        .        .        .        .72 
Instructions  to  correspondents ;  Suggestions. 

IV.  Agricultural  News 95 

Getting  farm  news;  Country  life;  Suggestions. 

V.  The  Editor 121 

Suggestions. 

VI.  The  Editorial  Page 144 

Suggestions. 

I     VII.    Make-up  of  the  Country  Weekly     .        .        .     165 
y  General  make-up  problems;  The  front  page;  Ad- 

'     vertising  make-up. 

VIII.     Copy-reading  and  Headline  Writing     .        ,     188 
Copy-reading;   Headline  writing. 

.     IX.     Circulation  Problems 215 

I        ._    Building  a  circulation;  Subscription  price  and  col- 
lections; Suggestions. 


X 


CONTENTS 

TER  PAGI 

Advertising  in  the  Country  Weekly  .        .        .    242 
The   function   of   advertising;    The   field   of   the 
country  weekly;  Fixing  the  rates;  Local  adver- 
tising; National  advertising;  Mail-order  advertis- 
ing; Suggestions. 


XL    Cost  Finding  for  the  Country  Weekly    .        .    286 
How  the  cost  finding  system  works. 

Appendix ,        .    333 

Style  sheet  for  country  offices. 

Index w        •    343 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

CHAPTER   I 

THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY  AND  ITS  PROBLEMS 

/  Metropolitan  Press  as  Typical. — The  metropoli- 
tan press  with  its  splendid  facilities  for  gathering  and 
disseminating  news  is  usually  considered  to  be  typical 
of  American  journalism.  The  big  city  papers  are  strik- 
ing. One  never  gets  quite  out  of  their  sphere  of  in- 
fluence. They  seem  to  go  everywhere.  Hence  it  is 
quite  natural  to  think  chiefly,  even  exclusively,  of  the 
city  daily  paper  in  considering  the  power  of  the  Ameri- 
can press. 

There  are  2,500  daily  newspapers  in  the  United 
States,  excluding  Alaska  and  the  Island  Possessions, 
and  more  than  half  of  these  are  published  in  cities  of 
more  than  25,000  population.  Good  postal  service,  es- 
pecially almost  universal  rural  delivery  of  mail,  has 
enabled  these  papers  to  cover  the  country  pretty  thor- 
oughly. The  farmer  and  small-town  subscriber  are 
furnished  daily  with  the  news  of  the  world;  foreign, 
domestic,  state,  and,  in  some  instances  where  the  city 
is  close  at  hand,  local  news.  Any  news  story  or  any 
advertisement  printed  in  these  papers  gets  wide  and 


i^ 


.   .a      ..  .  ...the!  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

•^\:  .:>;{  }  'f:  j/:  .  ; 

immediate  publicity.  Any  expression  of  editorial  opin- 
ion is  at  once  known  and  commented  upon  over  an 
area  varying,  according  to  the  importance  of  the  pa- 
per, from  the  section  of  the  state  in  which  it  is  pub- 
lished to  the  extent  of  three  or  four  states. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  real  power  of  the 
press  in  this  country  lay  in  the  city  papers,  and  that 
small-town  newspapers  must  inevitably  decline  before 
the  greater  service  and  superior  organization  of  the 
daily  papers.  This  was  the  opinion  of  many  of  the 
country  editors  themselves  some  years  ago  before  the 
establishment  of  rural  free  delivery  of  mail.  They 
tried  valiantly,  especially  those  who  were  located 
within  easy  distance  of  some  large  city,  to  prevent  the 
coming  of  rural  postal  service.  They  felt  that  it  was 
bringing  them  into  a  competition  which  they  could  not 
successfully  meet;  that  if  the  farmer  could  have  the 
paper  delivered  at  his  gate  six  days  in  the  week,  he 
would  not  care  for  one  delivered  but  once  a  week — 
one  which  brought,  at  best,  but  a  brief  summary  of 
what  had  happened  in  the  world  during  the  week. 
/  The  Strength  of  Numbers. — Considering,  then, 
the  power  of  the  city  press,  its  wide  appeal,  its  finan- 
cial backing,  the  country  weekly  seems  negligible,  and 
its  so-called  power  a  myth  or  tradition  persisting  from 
the  early  days  of  American  journalism,  which  need  no 
longer  be  considered  seriously. 

Something,  however,  must  be  conceded  to  numbers. 
There  are  16,277  weekly  papers  of  all  kinds  in  the 
United  States,  and  roughly  1,000  dailies  published  in 
towns  of  under  20,000  population.     Since  many  of 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY— ITS  PROBLEMS      3 

these  country  dailies  have  also  a  weekly  edition — 
the  real  parent  stalk  of  the  business  in  many  cases — 
they  may  properly  be  considered  as  part  of  the  rural 
press.  Deducting  the  nationally  circulated  weeklies, 
house  organs,  and  trade  journals,  there  is  still  an  ag- 
gregate of  more  than  10,000  country  weekly  news- 
papers in  the  United  States  as  compared  with  less  than 
1,500  daily  papers  published  in  towns  of  more  than 
20,000  population.  Circulation  statistics  show  that 
there  are  only  about  500  daily  papers  in  the  United 
States  which  have  a  circulation  of  10,000  or  over. 
/  The  Home  Paper. — The  figures  concerning  circu- 
lation are  suggestive  and  interesting  but  they  should 
not  be  trusted  too  far.  Circulation  is  not  necessarily 
an  infallible  index  of  the  power  and  influence  of  a 
paper  any  more  than  of  a  book.  The  six  best  sellers 
are  not  necessarily  the  cream  of  the  annual  literary 
output.  The  power  of  any  written  work,  whether  it 
be  a  book  or  a  newspaper,  is  to  be  estimated  in  terms, 
not  of  publicity,  but  of  resultant  thought  and  action. 
What  part  of  the  message,  editorial,  advertising,  or 
what  not,  is  driven  home  so  as  to  become  productive  ? 
The  residue  after  the  individual  reaction  is  the  deter- 
mining factor  of  effective  influence. 

It  is  the  boast  of  the  country  weekly  that  it  is  the 
paper  which  goes  into  the  home,  where  it  is  read  with 
some  degree  of  care  by  every  reading  member  of  the 
family;  that  its  measure  of  influence  is  not  to  be  esti- 
mated in  terms  of  circulation,  but  in  terms  of  social 
impulse  given  to  the  family  unit.  The  city  paper,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  said  to  be  a  production  for  ephem- 


4  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

eral  information;  a  thing  for  street  cars  and  office 
buildings;  a  publication  which  does  not  go  into  the 
home  in  the  sense  that  the  country  paper  does ;  which 
is  bought  for  certain  "features"  and  arouses  no  feel- 
ing of  friendship  such  as  the  country  weekly  calls 
forth.  Just  how  far  these  statements  may  be  true  it 
is  impossible  to  say,  but  it  is  certain  that  in  the  fact 
that  the  country  weekly  is  the  home  paper  fit  to  go 
into  the  home  and  to  be  read  by  every  member  lies  its 
greatest  strength  and  its  surest  guarantee  of  continued 
honorable  existence. 

The  Typical  American  Family. — One  of  the  most 
conspicuously  successful  m.agazine  proprietors  of  to- 
day set  out  to  solve  the  problem  of  creating  and  main- 
taining a  circulation  among  the  kind  of  people  that  he 
felt  would  derive  the  most  benefit  from  the  sort  of  a 
publication  he  was  conducting.  He  knew,  of  course, 
that  genuine  service  to  his  public  would  bring  ample 
financial  rewards  and  make  his  magazine  the  power  he 
wished  it  to  be  in  its  chosen  field.  But  he  knew,  too, 
that  he  must  find  a  public  willing  to  be  helped — honest, 
intelligent,  concerned  with  home  welfare;  in  a  word, 
the  substantial,  American-home  public. 

In  creating  this  average  American  home,  the  editor 
postulated  a  family  to  which  his  magazine  would  di- 
rectly appeal.  He  conceived  this  family  to  be  the  aver- 
age American  family  of  five — father,  mother,  and 
three  children.  He  assumed  that  the  father  earned  a 
salary  of  from  $1,200  to  $1,800  a  year  in  a  town  of 
1,500  in  the  Middle  West  near  the  center  of  popula- 
tion.   Thus,  his  ideal  public  was  created  and  he  bent 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY— ITS  PROBLEMS      5 

all  his  efforts* to  produce  a  magazine  which  would 
carry  something  definitely  helpful  into  such  a  home 
every  month;  something  which  would  pass  over  into 
useful  and  beneficent  action.  The  success  of  the  maga- 
zine has  been  ample  assurance  of  the  editor's  acumen; 
and  the  success  has  been  cumulative,  for  the  public 
to  which  his  magazine  is  addressed  has  confidence  in 
the  editor  and  in  his  publication.  There  are  other 
magazines  with  larger  circulations,  but  it  is  doubtful 
if  any  other  has  so  much  influence  with  its  subscribers, 
or  covers  so  large  a  field  as  thoroughly. 
/  The  Weekly  Paper's  Public. — The  weekly  paper 
finds  its  best  public  and  its  chief  elements  of  strength 
in  just  such  a  community.  The  family  in  the  small 
town  and  on  the  farm  is  in  accord  with  the  aims  and 
service  of  the  good  country  paper.  The  public  is  more 
nearly  homogeneous  than  is  possible  in  any  other 
newspaper  field.  The  country  town  has  more  stability 
of  residence  than  the  larger  centers.  People  live  there 
year  after  year  and  most  of  them  own  their  homes  and 
have  a  distinct  and  fairly  permanent  place  in  the  busi- 
ness and  social  life  of  the  community.  They  are  in- 
terested in  their  neighbors  and  in  the  progress  and 
development  of  the  town  and  of  the  trade  basin  in 
which  it  is  located.  This  community  of  interest  makes 
possible  a  distinct  service  for  the  country  weekly.  The 
possibilities  are  there  and  the  wise  editor  will  not  fail 
to  cultivate  to  a  high  degree  of  efficiency  the  things 
which  are  distinctly  within  his  province. 
1  Rural  Mindedness. — Warren  D.  Foster,  of  the 
Youth's  Companion^  says  that  a  large  part  of  the  sue- 


6  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

cess  of  that  magazine  is  built  upon  the  rural  minded- 
ness  of  its  public.  By  *'rural  mindedness''  he  means 
that  the  average  American  is  not  far  removed  from 
the  soil.  The  qualities  of  courage  and  honor  and  the 
integrity  of  the  family  are  the  residue  of  generations 
of  country  ancestry  living  in  austere  virtue  on  the 
soil. 

By  inheritance  most  of  us  are  interested  in  the 
things  of  home,  in  our  neighbors'  doings,  and  in  the 
thousand-and-one  little  things  which  go  to  make  up 
the  life  of  a  community  week  by  week.  Fortunately, 
in  the  country,  we  have  not  attained  the  splendid  isola- 
tion of  the  city  "cliff  dweller."  Simple,  homely 
things  interest  us;  wholesome  relations  with  our  fel- 
lows is  a  large  part  of  life  in  the  country.  We  like 
to  talk  about  and  to  read  things  which  "play  up''  the 
desirable  qualities  and  virtues  of  life.  We  are  espe- 
cially pleased  and  interested  if  such  things  occur  in 
our  own  immediate  vicinity.  It  is  the  function  of  the 
country  weekly  to  report  these  things  from  the  town 
and  the  country  round  about.  We  are  essentially  pro- 
vincial and  like  to  find  in  our  own  community  those 
motive  elements  of  human  action  which,  on  larger 
stages,  have  produced  world  events. 

Provincialism— Defining  the  Term. — The  term 
"provincial"  as  used  in  connection  with  newspapers 
should  be  construed  to  mean  showing  characteristics 
of  a  certain  locality ;  emphasizing  the  doings  and  cus- 
toms of  that  particular  section  from  which  the  paper 
comes.  This  is  what  is  commonly  meant  by  city  folk 
who  bring  the  charge  of  provincialism  against  the 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY— ITS  PROBLEMS      7 

country  paper.  There  is  usually  an  implied  reproach 
in  the  term. 

Despite  the  tendency  of  city  papers  and  of  city  folk 
in  general  to  ridicule  the  country  paper,  there  is  little 
doubt  that,  in  some  ways,  the  country  weekly  is  the 
best  paper  printed.  It  comes  nearer  to  fulfilling  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  established — that  of  telling 
the  news  about  its  own  community  and  of  neighboring 
communities — than  any  other  kind  of  paper  can  pos- 
sibly come.  It  has  no  other  field  to  cover  and  can  deal 
intensively  with  local  and  county  news.  There  are  no 
statistics  available  to  show  the  close  relation  of  the 
country  weekly  to  the  people  of  the  community;  no 
statistics  could  show  it,  for,  vital  though  it  is,  it  is 
still  an  intangible  thing.  The  city  paper,  catering  in 
almost  every  instance  to  a  heterogeneous  and  diffuse 
public,  cannot  have  the  homogeneity  of  the  country 
weekly. 

All  Newspapers  Provincial. — The  charge  of  pro- 
vincialism against  the  country  weekly  cannot  well  be 
refuted.  The  country  weekly  is  provincial;  there  is 
no  doubt  of  it.  But  so,  too,  are  the  daily  papers  of  the 
cities.  'The  really  provincial  journalist,''  says 
Charles  M.  Harger,  "the  worker  whose  scope  and 
ideals  are  most  limited,  is  often  he  who  has  spent 
years  as  a  part  of  a  great  newspaper-making  ma- 
chine.'* The  papers  of  Atlanta  and  New  Orleans  have 
a  wholly  different  flavor  from  those  of  Denver  and 
Salt  Lake  City.  The  Indianapolis  News  and  the 
Springfield  Republican  are  both  great  papers;  both 
carry  many  columns  of  state,  national,  and  foreign 


8  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

news.  But  there  is  a  distinct  difference  between  them. 
The  fact  is  that  all  American  newspapers  are  provin- 
cial, as  they  must  be  in  a  country  as  large  as  this.  No 
paper  could  hope  to  cover  with  equal  accuracy  and 
with  equal  emphasis  the  affairs  of  every  state  in  the 
nation;  nor  is  it  to  be  desired.  Without  some  provin- 
cialism there  is  likely  to  be  little  or  no  individuality — a 
quality  indispensable  to  first-rate  journalism,  urban  or 
rural.  Up  to  a  certain  point  provincialism  is  to  be  de- 
sired, and  is  a  valuable  circulation  asset  for  any 
paper. 

Note,  in  any  city  paper,  the  relative  amount  of 
space  given  to  stories  according  to  locality.  If  a  mur- 
der of  no  special  importance  is  done  in  Chicago,  the 
local  papers  devote  some  space  to  it;  if  it  had  occurred 
in  Milwaukee  or  Peoria,  the  Chicago  papers  would 
have  given  the  story  less  space;  if  in  Cincinnati  or 
Omaha,  still  less;  and  if  it  had  happened  in  New  York 
or  San  Francisco,  a  few  lines  at  best  would  have  cov- 
ered it. 

Charles  Edward  Russell  says:  "A  New  York  con- 
stituency cares  for  little  except  New  York.  The  typ- 
ical New  Yorker  is  skeptical  about  any  region  west 
of  Hoboken  or  east  of  Far  Rockaway;  and,  even  if  it 
exists,  he  has  no  interest  in  it.''  To  cater  to  pro- 
vincialism of  this  sort  is  perfectly  good  and  legitimate 
newspaper  policy  even  though  we  may  decry  the  nar- 
rowness of  public  interest.  It  is  proper  to  play  up  the 
news  of  the  city  and  communities  suburban  to  it.  This 
is  precisely  what  the  country  weekly  does  on  a  smaller 
scale,  and  city  folk  should  find  no  reproach  in  the 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY— ITS  PROBLEMS      9 

provincialism  of  the  country  weekly.  Rather,  they 
should  compliment  the  country  press  upon  the  perfec- 
tion to  which  provincialism  has  attained  in  the  rural 
paper. 

f  Agriculture  and  the  Country  Weekly. — Taking 
the  farming  states  of  the  Middle  West  as  typical  of 
the  best  rural  field,  we  find  some  interesting  and  sig- 
nificant facts  concerning  the  newspaper.  The  follow- 
ing twelve  states  are  included  in  what  is  ordinarily 
known  as  the  Middle  West :  Ohio,  Indiana,  Michigan, 
Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  Missouri,  Minnesota,  Kan- 
sas, Nebraska,  North  Dakota,  and  South  Dakota. 

In  these  twelve  states  there  are  published  7,303 
weekly  papers;  almost  half  the  total  number  of  week- 
lies published  in  the  forty-eight  states  which  comprise 
the  Union.  Or,  on  a  basis  of  population,  almost  half 
the  total  number  of  weeklies  to  less  than  a  third  of 
the  total  population.  The  percentage  of  daily  papers 
in  the  Middle  West,  naturally,  is  lower.  There  are 
959  daily  papers,  or  37  per  cent  of  the  whole  number 
published  in  the  United  States.  This  number  is  greatly 
increased  by  the  large  number  of  dailies  published  in 
Chicago.  These  figures  indicate  that  the  rural  people 
in  the  great  farming  belt  of  this  country  like  to  read — 
to  keep  abreast  of  things ;  and  that  the  rural  minded- 
ness  of  the  people  is  an  indication  of  a  good  field  for 
the  country  weekly.     ^ 

In  these  twelve  states  there  are  1,038  counties,  with 
an  average  of  7  weekly  papers  to  a  county — practically 
no  overcrowding  of  the  field.  The  average  size  of 
farms  varies  from  88.6  acres  in  Ohio  to  382.3  acres  in 


10  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

North  Dakota;  the  average  value  per  acre  from  $25.69 
in  North  Dakota  to  $95.02  in  lUinois;  and  the  total 
value  per  farm  from  $5,261  in  Michigan  to  $17,259  in 
Iowa.  Most  of  these  states  have  the  greater  part  of 
their  acreage  given  over  to  agriculture,  which  is  the 
chief  business  of  the  entire  section.  Small  towns  of 
from  1,000  to  2,500  derive  their  support  from  these 
prosperous  farming  communities. 

Field  of  the  Country  Weekly. — The  man  who 
enters  the  country  field  should,  first  of  all,  understand 
the  peculiar  character  of  the  weekly  publication;  the 
points  wherein  it  differs  from  every  other  publication 
whatsoever;  the  points  that  it  has  in  common  with 
other  periodicals.  It  should  be  perfectly  plain  that, 
in  order  to  succeed,  the  country  editor  should  give  his 
public  what  it  wants  and  something  which  not  only 
is  not  furnished  by  the  daily  papers,  but  something 
[Which  cannot  possibly  be  furnished  by  them.  This 
means  that  he  must  confine  himself  exclusively  to  the 
pome  field.  Here  he  has  possibilities  no  metropolitan 
paper,  no  matter  how  completely  organized,  can  ex- 
ploit. In  this  field,  his  only  safe  and  logical  field,  he 
can  have  no  outside  competition. 

The  best  place  for  a  country  weekly  is  in  a  town 
which  does  not  stand  by  itself;  a  town  where  inter- 
urban  and  railroad  connections  with  smaller  towns 
are  adequate  and  service  frequent.  Usually  the  county 
seat  offers  the  most  advantages.  It  is  generally  cen- 
trally located,  it  is  the  seat  of  the  county  government, 
and  the  courthouse  news  and  general  county  news  may 
be  had  with  less  effort  than  at  other  places  in  the 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY— ITS  PROBLEMS    ii 

county.  Such  a  town,  lying  in  the  midst  of  a  rich, 
highly-developed  farming  community  where  roads  are 
good  and  the  population  stable,  is  the  best  field  for  a 
country  weekly — a  county  paper  as  distinguished  from 
the  purely  town-  and  community-papers  of  the 
smaller  towns  in  the  vicinity. 

Problems  of  the  Country  Weekly 

The  ''One-Man  Shop."— The  problems  of  the 
country  weekly  arise  chiefly  from  the  fact  that  it  is  a 
*'one-man''  enterprise.  In  most  cases,  to  be  sure,  the 
editor  will  have  assistants  both  in  the  front  office  and 
in  the  job  department.  But  the  details  and  the  man- 
agement of  all  parts  of  the  business  will  be  his  work, 
because,  as  a  rule,  the  paper  is  not  large  enough  to 
have  specialized  departments.  Having  so  many  things 
to  look  after,  the  editor  is  not  likely  to  give  enough 
time  to  each  to  provide  so  good  a  product  as  he  ought ; 
certainly  not  so  good  as  he  could  provide  if  his  duties 
were  not  so  multifarious. 

In  the  average  country  newspaper  office  the  editor's 
duties  comprise  news  gathering  and  news  writing; 
typesetting  or  the  superintendence  of  it;  copyreading; 
proofreading;  make-up  or  the  superintendence  of  it; 
press  work ;  estimating  and  sometimes  "setting  up  and 
running  off"  job  work;  soliciting,  estimating,  and 
writing  advertising ;  soliciting  subscriptions ;  mail- 
ing papers;  writing  editorials;  bookkeeping;  collecting 
bills;  and  operating  cost  system.  Since,  as  a  rule,  the 
editor  is  usually  more  or  less  prominent  in  civic  activi- 


12  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

ties  and  social  organizations,  there  are  many  extra- 
editorial  duties  which,  though  pleasant,  are  distracting 
and  take  time.  These  numerous  duties  make  it  almost 
impossible  for  the  editor  to  give  as  much  time  as  he 
ought  to  the  work  of  getting  and  presenting  the  news. 

"A  survey  of  Kansas  country  journalism  by  the 
University  department  of  journalism  in  191 1,''  says 
Professor  Merle  Thorpe,  of  the  University  of  Kansas, 
"brought  forth  the  astonishing  fact  that  each  of  the 
213  editors  who  furnished  statistics  was  not  only  work- 
ing fourteen  and  fifteen  hours  a  day,  seven  days  in 
the  week,  but  that  five-sixths  of  their  time  was  taken 
up  with  soliciting  job  work  and  advertising,  setting 
type,  and  running  the  presses,  while  one-sixth  was  de- 
voted to  gathering  and  writing  the  news.'' 

Costs. — The  second  great  problem  of  the  country 
weekly  is  the  vital  one  of  finding  costs.  The  majority 
of  country  publishers  have  no  real  basis  for  figuring 
costs — no  scientific  system  of  determining  the  cost  of 
production  of  the  finished  product,  whether  it  be  a 
copy  of  the  paper,  an  advertisement,  or  a  lot  of  bill- 
heads. Rather  than  to  be  idle,  and  in  order  to  give 
their  shops  the  specious  appearance  of  prosperity,  many 
editor-printers  have  sold  job  work  too  cheaply.  Where 
there  is  no  system  of  cost  finding,  both  printer  and 
customer  estimate  current  prices  on  prices  paid  for 
similar  work  in  the  past,  and,  once  started  on  prices 
that  are  too  low,  the  progress  toward  bad  business  is 
rapid. 

Some  of  the  county  organizations  have  taken  steps 
toward  providing  a  remedy  for  this  condition,  and  the 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY— ITS  PROBLEMS    13 

price  of  standard  work  has  been  made  uniform 
throughout  the  counties  so  organized.  Still,  in  most 
cases,  this  is  merely  a  makeshift  and  the  cost  so  deter- 
mined has  little  to  recommend  it  except  that  it  is  de- 
signed to  prevent  underbidding  in  the  county.  It  seems 
unlikely  that  country  papers  and  job  offices  will  ever 
prosper  as  they  should  until  there  is  a  workable,  relia- 
ble system  of  cost  finding  in  each  office. 

In  1 9 12  the  country  newspaper  stood  37th  in  credit 
rating.  In  the  state  of  Kansas,  where  there  were  613 
weekly  papers,  82  per  cent  of  the  publishing  business 
in  that  year  was  operating  under  a  mortgage.  This, 
too,  in  a  state  where  there  are  less  than  six  weekly 
papers  to  each  county  and  where  82.9  per  cent  of  the 
whole  area  of  the  state  is  given  over  to  farming — 
just  the  kind  of  country  in  which  rural  journalism 
should  make  its  greatest  success.  In  several  of  the 
Middle  Western  states,  notably  in  Kansas  and  Wiscon- 
sin, the  state  universities  are  trying  to  correct  this 
condition  by  offering  to  install  at  a  nominal  cost  a 
simple,  efficient  system  of  cost  finding.  In  this  they 
are  rendering  notable  service,  for  no  paper  which  is 
not  a  prosperous,  going  concern  is  likely  to  have  the 
editorial  prestige  and  constructive  influence  which  are 
the  chief  ends  of  any  newspaper. 

Selling  Problems. — Closely  allied  with  the  firs'  two 
problems  is  the  third,  that  of  selling  the  product.  The 
editor  has  news  to  sell  in  the  form  of  circulation,  and 
space  to  sell  in  the  form  of  advertising.  The  three 
sources  of  income  for  a  country  newspaper  are  circu- 
lation, advertising,  and  job  work.     If  the  editor  does 


14  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

not  get  out  a  good,  live  paper,  he  has  difficulty  in  build- 
ing a  circulation;  if  he  has  not  a  good  circulation,  he 
cannot  get  sufficient  advertising  to  pay;  and  if  he 
cannot  get  the  advertising,  he  cannot  run  a  live  paper 
because  of  the  limitations  of  his  income  and  the  atten- 
tion which  must  be  given  to  the  job  office  in  the  attempt 
to  make  it  support  the  publishing  business.  The  whole 
thing  works  in  a  vicious  circle. 

The  situation,  however,  is  better  than  it  was  even 
ten  years  ago.  Better  postal  facilities,  better  roads, 
interurban  service,  and  motor  cars  have  enlarged  the 
field  and  have  made  for  larger  circulation  among 
country  weeklies.  More  people  believe  in  advertising 
now  than  ever  before,  and  they  have  studied  it  more. 
While  it  is  true  that  country  weekly  advertising  of  the 
kind  sometimes  seen  probably  does  not  pay,  advertising 
in  the  rural  papers  indubitably  is  good  business  if  done 
properly.  Good  advertising  copy  well  displayed  in  a 
country  weekly,  and  advertising  goods  for  which  there 
is  a  rural  demand,  is  as  well  placed  as  advertising  can 
be.  Advertisers  of  nationally-marketed  products  are 
beginning  to  see  this,  and  the  country  editor  is  begin- 
ning to  get  a  share  of  the  advertising  appropriations 
of  some  of  the  greatest  publicity  buyers  in  the  country. 

Summary. — The  problem,  then,  of  the  country 
weekly,  given  under  three  heads  above,  may,  in  effect, 
be  reduced  to  one — that  it  is  a  one-man  affair.  If  the 
paper  were  large  enough  to  admit  of  a  news  force, 
mechanical  force,  circulation  and  advertising  depart- 
ments, and  a  cost  expert,  the  problem  would  be  solved. 
The  fact  that  the  editor  has  to  make  his  product  by 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY— ITS  PROBLEMS    15 

hand,  so  to  speak,  sell  it,  and  analyze  every  element  of 
cost  and  income  without  expert  knowledge  on  the  sub- 
ject constitutes  the  great  problem  of  the  country 
weekly. 


CHAPTER  II 

LOCAL  NEWS 

I.     News  in  the  Country  Weekly 

What  is  News? — The  commonest  terms  are  often 
those  which  are  most  loosely  used;  those  which  are 
most  in  need  of  clarifying.  Some  years  ago  Collier's 
Weekly  submitted  a  questionnaire  to  about  a  hundred 
publishers  and  editors  throughout  the  United  States 
asking  the  apparently  simple  question,  "What  is 
news?'*  Some  of  the  answers  were  set  forth  in  a 
symposium  which  ran  through  five  issues  of  the  maga- 
zine. It  was  surprising  to  see  how  these  men,  whose 
vocation  is  handling  news,  differed  in  their  concep- 
tions of  the  one  commodity  with  which  they  were 
presumably  most  familiar.  Some  of  the  definitions 
follow : 

News  is  whatever  your  readers  want  to  know  about. 
I  News  comprises  all  current  activities  which  are  of 
general  human  interest,  and  the  best  news  is  that  which 
interests  the  most  readers. 

News  is  anything  that  happens  in  which  the  people 
are  interested. 

News  is  the  recital  of  essential  facts  concerning  any 
happening,  event,  or  idea  that  possesses  human  inter- 

i6 


LOCAL  NEWS  |  17 

est;  that  affects  or  has  an  influence  on  human  life  or 
happiness. 

These  definitions,  although  they  seem  to  be  true  so 
far  as  they  go,  do  not  sufficiently  clarify  the  idea. 

News  must  be  of  interest  to  the  reader,  but  the  de- 
gree of  interest  is  determined  by  the  reader's  famil- 
iarity with  the  subject,  with  the  setting,  and  with  the 
people  involved ;  also,  and  to  a  greater  degree,  the  in- 
terest of  the  reader  depends  upon  the  effect  of  the 
news  upon  his  own  personal  welfare.  News  may  also 
be  important  and  significant,  and  in  almost  all  cases  the 
importance  and  significance  will  be,  either  directly  or 
indirectly,  proportionate  to  the  effect  on  the  reader  '/ 
personally. 

Definition  of  News. — A  working  definition,  then, 
of  news  mxight  be  given  as  follows:  News  is  any- 
thing that  is  of  interest,  significance,  or  importance  to 
a  number  of  people;  and  the  best  news  is  that  which 
has  the  most  interest,  significance,  and  importance  for 
the  greatest  number. 

Scope  of  the  News. — The  scope  of  the  news  in  a     [^ 
country  community  has  probably  never  been  better  de- 
fined than  by  Horace  Greeley  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote 
in  i860  to  a  friend  about  to  enter  the  country  field. 
The  letter  in  part  follows: 


Begin  with  the  clear  conception  that  the  subject  of 
deepest  interest  to  an  average  human  being  is  himself; 
next  to  that  he  is  most  concerned  about  his  neighbors. 
Asia  and  the  Congo  stand  a  long  way  after  these  in  his 
regard.  It  does  seem  to  me  that  most  country  journal- 
ists are  oblivious  to  these  vital  truths.  If  you  will,  as 
soon  as  may  be,  secure  a  wide-awake,  judicious  cor  re- 


%^^|l(^ 


\ 


i8  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

spondent  in  every  village  and  township  in  your  county — 
some  young  lawyer,  doctor,  clerk  in  a  store,  or  assistant 
in  a  post  office,  who  will  promptly  send  you  whatever  of 
moment  occurs  in  his  vicinity,  and  will  make  up  at  least 
half  of  your  journal  of  local  matter  thus  collected,  no- 
body in  the  county  can  long  do  without  it.  Do  not  let  a 
new  church  be  organized,  or  new  members  be  added  to 
one  already  existing,  a  farm  be  sold,  a  new  house  be 
raised,  a  mill  be  set  in  motion,  a  store  be  opened,  nor 
anything  of  interest  to  a  dozen  families  occur  without 
having  the  fact  duly,  though  briefly,  chronicled  in  your 
columns.  If  a  farmer  cuts  a  big  tree,  or  grows  a  mam- 
moth beet,  or  harvests  a  bounteous  yield  of  wheat  or 
corn,  set  forth  the  fact  as  concisely  and  unexceptionally 
as  possible.  In  due  time  obtain  and  print  a  brief  histori- 
cal and  statistical  account  of  each  township — who  first 
settled  it,  who  have  been  its  prominent  citizens,  who  ob- 
tained advanced  years  therein,  etc.  Record  every  birth 
as  well  as  every  marriage  or  death.  In  short,  make  your 
paper  a  perfect  mirror  of  everything  done  in  your  coun- 
ty that  your  citizens  ought  to  know. 

News  Values. — News  values  are  always  decided  by 
the  reading  public  as  individuals.  The  editor  who 
knows  his  public  and  has  a  fairly  homogeneous  com- 
munity to  write  for  can  present  constructively  the 
things  which  he  knows  will  interest  his  readers.  Keep- 
ing well  within  the  scope  of  the  news  as  set  forth  above, 
the  editor  will  find  that  news  values  are  determined  by 
the  reader's  interest  in  the  following : 

(i)  Timely  happenings:  Things  which  are  of  re- 
cent occurrence  are  usually  of  interest  because  they  are 
new,  if  for  no  other  reason.  We  like  to  know  what 
is  going  on  in  the  county  about  us,  even  though  it 
may  not  directly  affect  us  in  any  personal  way. 

(2)  Contests  for  supremacy:    Local  sports,  society, 


LOCAL  NEWS  19 

competition  with  other  towns,  and,  to  a  less  degree, 
business  present  an  interesting  news  field.  Man  in- 
stinctively likes  a  contest  and,  if  there  is  no  direct  per- 
sonal effect  upon  him,  he  usually  takes  sides  because 
of  the  greater  interest  that  comes  from  partisanship. 
But  in  the  small  town  these  contests  usually  bear  di- 
rectly upon  most  of  the  readers  of  the  paper.  If  one  is 
not  in  politics  himself,  he  has  a  friend  who  is  a  can- 
didate, or  a  measure  which  he  wishes  to  see  enacted 
into  an  ordinance  or  a  law  because  it  will  affect  him 
directly.  He  may  not  care  to  mingle  with  the  formal 
society  groups  of  the  town,  but  if  he  has  a  daughter, 
he  will  likely  want  her  to  be  acceptable  to  the  "best 
crowd."  The  position  of  his  own  town  relative  to 
that  of  other  towns  will  always  be  a  matter  of  prime 
interest  to  him.  In  general,  the  contest  idea  is  usually 
full  of  interest,  importance,  and  significance  to  every 
reader  of  the  small-town  paper. 

(3)  The  strange,  mysterious,  or  unusual:  The  un- 
expected is  always  good  news  material  because  it 
breaks  the  routine  and  supplies  a  sort  of  shock.  Dana 
once  said:  *Tf  a  dog  bites  a  man,  there  is  not  much 
news  value  involved;  but  if  a  man  bites  a  dog,  that  is 
news."  The  departure  from  the  normal  order  of 
things,  then,  is  fundamentally  good  news.  Accidents, 
elopements,  fires  and  deaths,  especially  if  they  are  sud- 
den, all  make  good  news,  even  though  they  may  not 
in  any  way  affect  the  reader  personally. 

(4)  Children  and  pets:  Practically  all  readers  are 
interested  in  children,  and  most  people  like  pets.  The 
interest  here  rises  from  personal  feeling  and  experi- 


20  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

ence.  Only  those  people  are  interested  in  children  and 
pets  who  have  loved  them;  but  that  includes  nearly 
everyone.  They  can  feel  a  sympathetic  interest  in 
stories  of  any  children  and  pets — even  those  who  are 
unknown  to  them.  Of  course  the  interest  is  much 
greater  if  the  news  happens  to  be  concerning  their 
own. 

(5)  Matters  concerning  property,  life,  and  well- 
being  of  fellow  men:  This  division  calls  forth  the 
social  feeling  of  man,  for  the  interest  he  feels  in  his 
fellows  is  usually  indirectly  personal.  Brown  wants 
Smith  safeguarded  in  his  property  rights  because  he 
wishes  to  have  the  protection  of  the  law  himself.  He 
wants  Smith  to  have  pure  water  because  he  wants  the 
village  to  furnish  him  with  good  water  too,  and  be- 
cause an  epidemic  of  typhoid  fever  might  affect  him 
personally.  Aside  from  these  fundamentally  selfish 
considerations,  there  is  a  feeling  of  unselfish  friend- 
ship which  enters  into  many  cases.  This,  however, 
is  a  later  development  of  a  higher  civilization. 

(6)  Matters  of  tradition  and  sentiment:  It  is 
rather  difficult  to  place  this  division.  It  seems  likely, 
however,  that  it  is  indirectly  personal  and  depends 
partly  on  the  contest  idea.  For  example,  if  Smith- 
ville  has  a  tradition  of  being  highly  patriotic,  the 
readers  as  a  rule  wish  it  to  be  maintained.  Not  only 
because  it  shows  that  Smithville  has  an  honorable  his- 
tory, but  also  because  Brownstown  has  no  such  tradi- 
tion. Or  if  the  old  church  has  stood  in  the  village 
for  a  hundred  years,  the  people  will  cherish  it  more 
than  they  would  a  new  one,  and  look  with  more  or 


LOCAL  NEWS  2i 

less  disdain  on  the  comfortable,  modern  church  at 
Brownstown.  Each  reader  feels  that  he  shares  the  his- 
tory of  the  place,  and  extracts  a  certain  personal  satis- 
faction from  it. 

(7)  Hobbies  and  amusements :  This  refers  directly 
and  wholly  to  the  personal.  If  a  man  is  enthusiastic 
about  fishing,  he  will  probably  not  care  to  read  about 
golf  or  baseball.  If  he  Hkes  to  hunt,  he  will  likely 
pass  by  the  items  about  fishing  and  tennis  and  read 
whatever  is  printed  about  hunting.  News  of  this  sort 
is  usually  limited  in  its  appeal. 

Local  News. — "The  newspaper,"  says  Delos  F.  Wil- 
cox, "should  render  easily  accessible  all  widely  interest- 
ing news  as  promptly  as  consistent  with  accurate  re- 
porting, and  should  furthermore  give  concise  reviews 
of  public  events  just  past.''  It  is  Hkely  that  Mr.  Wil- 
cox had  in  mind  the  city  daily  paper,  but  there  is 
nothing  in  his  dictum  which  does  not  apply  to  the 
country  weekly.  The  publication  of  news,  real  news, 
then,  is  the  primary  function  of  the  country  paper  as 
much  as  of  the  metropolitan  daily.  Unless  the  paper 
discharges  this  function  it  has  no  reason  for  existence 
and  deserves  the  failure  which  must  inevitably  come. 

How  shall  the  publication  of  this  be  accomplished? 
The  country  editor  cannot  hope  to  compete  in  any  p^ 
sense  with  the  daily  newspapers  of  the  cities  nearby. 
Nor  is  it  any  longer  necessary  that  he  should.  The 
swift  pace  at  which  modern  life  moves,  the  complete- 
ness of  organization  for  the  gathering  and  dissemina- 
tion of  news,  and  the  cheapness  of  the  finished  product 
make  the  daily  newspaper  almost  a  necessity  and  prac- 


22  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

tically  a  universal  thing.  But  the  people  of  a  given 
community  want  to  know  in  detail  what  is  going  on  in 
their  own  town  and  in  the  neighboring  towns  of  the 
county.  The  city  paper  cannot  furnish  this  sort  of 
news.  It  is  news  about  people  they  know  that  pleases 
the  readers  of  the  country  weekly. 

Says  W.  R.  Watson  of  the  Omaha  World-Herald: 
*Trom  a  story  of  human  interest  with  a  well-known 
man  or  woman  in  the  limelight,  to  the  two-line  per- 
sonaJLthe  chronicles  about  individuals  and  what  they 
are  doing  form  the  most  interesting  news  of  the  day." 

Local  news!  That  is  what  makes  the  backbone  of 
the  country  paper.  There  may  be  other  things  that 
seem  more  dignified  to  the  young  editor-publisher  than 
sweating  after  local  news.  To  one  just  fresh  from  the 
history  of  the  great  lights  of  journalism,  it  may  seem  a 
a  derogation  of  dignity  to  shadow  the  hotel  register 
and  *'make"  the  trains.  A  great  deal  of  sympathy  is 
due  the  young  journalist  cub  who  makes  his  start  in 
the  country  field.  In  the  city  there  will  be  just  as  many 
discouraging  and  humiliating  things,  but  one  is  only 
an  atom  there  in  the  general  mixture.  In  the  country 
one  is  known  to  all,  and  humiliations  and  failures  are 
hard  to  bear ;  while  work  done  successfully  is  not  likely 
to  receive  much  comment.  But  the  country  journalist 
should  remember  that  he  is  by  way  of  being  a  news- 
paper man,  and  that  the  only  way  by  which  he  can  be 
at  all  worthy  to  be  classed  as  one  of  the  brotherhood 
of  Greeley,  Bowles,  Reid,  Nelson,  Watterson,  White, 
Dana  and  others  is  to  put  the  emphasis  on  the  first 
syllable — on  the  news. 


LOCAL  NEWS  23 

The  editor-publisher  of  a  weekly  paper  should  be 
decently  honest.  He  has  contracted  with  each  of  his 
subscribers  at  the  rate  of  $1.50  a  year  (certainly  it 
ought  not  to  be  less  than  that)  to  furnish  the  local 
news.  He  has  a  duty  to  perform.  If  he  fails  in  the 
performance  of  this  fundamental  duty,  no  matter  what 
the  excellence  of  his  editorials,  no  matter  how  enter- 
taining his  ''features,''  no  matter  how  beneficent  his 
plans  for  community  betterment,  he  is  a  failure  in  his 
profession — and,  what  is  worse,  he  is  a  fraud.  Some 
people  like  editorials,  some  like  entertainment,  some 
like  helpful  and  practical  hints;  but  everybody  wants 
local  news. 

These  other  things  are  good  and  have  their  place 
in  the  well-balanced  paper;  but  let  the  gathering  and 
presentation  of  local  news  be  the  first  great  function  of 
the  country  editor.  Not  for  him  the  picturesque  phras- 
ing of  the  great  war  correspondent  writing  of  the 
most  stupendous  battle  the  world  ever  knew.  His 
duty  is  to  tell  of  the  repairs  being  made  on  the  Mer- 
chants' Hotel.  Perhaps  some  great  disaster  has  oc- 
curred which  has  aroused  the  sympathy  of  the  world. 
The  daily  newspapers  will  take  care  of  the  news  end 
of  that.  The  country  editor's  business  is  to  tell  that 
Stewart  has  taken  first  prize  at  the  county  fair  with 
his  pure-bred  Holstein-Friesians,  and  to  connect  that 
news  item  with  some  good,  live  agricultural  copy.  Do 
you  call  that  undignified?  Then  you  are  unworthy 
of  your  high  calling,  for  this  is  the  very  stuff  of  life. 
Dignity  is  concerned  with  the  frame  of  mind,  with  the 
worthiness  of  the  duty  being  performed,  and  never 


24  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

with  exterior  conditions.  Never  mind  the  dignity! 
Get  the  news ! 
x/  News  Classification. — ^Local  news  in  general  falls 
roughly  into  the  following  divisions:  (i)  Crime;  (2) 
educational;  (3)  political;  (4)  social  and  personal; 
(5)  commercial  and  industrial ;  (6)  miscellaneous.  It 
will  be  seen  that  these  divisions  may  all  be  tested  by 
the  standards  of  news  values  given  above.  For  exam- 
ple, crime  will  always  be  of  interest  because  it  is  un- 
usual, because  it  is  a  matter  concerning  the  life  or  well- 
being  of  a  fellow  man,  because  it  may  be  of  direct  per- 
sonal efifect  upon  the  reader  if  he  or  someone  he  knows 
intimately  is  involved.  Educational  matters  may  be 
qualified  by  timeliness,  by  personal  interest,  direct  or 
indirect,  by  the  contest  idea,  by  tradition  or  sentiment, 
or  even  by  a  hobby  interest;  as,  for  instance,  a  man 
who  makes  a  hobby  of  debating  may  find  news  of  a 
school  debate  of  great  interest  even  though  he  knows 
personally  none  of  the  contestants.  The  live  editor 
can  find  points  of  significance  and  interest  in  almost 
every  happening  in  the  community,  however  trivial 
it  may  seem  to  a  casual  observer.  The  point  is  that  the 
editor  cannot  afford  to  be  a  casual  observer.  He  must 
be  able  to  see  through  and  beyond  surface  indications 
and  present  the  real  significance  of  happenings  in  the 
community. 

II.    Gathering  the  News 

In  every  community,  however  small,  are  found  cer- 
tain centers  which  are  sources  of  gossip  or  news  for 


LOCAL  NEWS 


as 


more  or  less  definite  groups  of  people.  In  the  pioneer 
community,  the  ferry,  the  tavern,  the  general  store, 
and  the  blacksmith  shop  were  the  centers  where  neigh- 
borhood news  was  exchanged.  As  the  town  grew, 
more  news  centers  developed,  each  furnishing  a  pretty 
definite  kind  of  news.  The  city,  with  its  complex 
social  and  commercial  organization,  offers  hundreds 
of  news  centers,  but  the  kind  of  news  to  be  gathered 
in  these  centers  is  not  essentially  different  from  the 
news  of  the  rural  community;  the  news  sources  of  a 
small  town  are  practically  the  same  as  those  of  a  city, 
except  that  there  are  fewer  of  them. 


News  Sources  in  the  Country 


Railway  Station  :- 


Post  Office  :— 
Clergymen:— 

Telephone  Exchange : 
Schools  :— 


Departure  and  arrivals,  prod- 
ucts shipped  from  the  town, 
railway  improvements,  safety 
campaigns,  new  train  schedules, 
latest  news  from  neighboring 
towns,  chance  news  from  com- 
mercial "drummers." 
General  village  news,  personals, 
miscellaneous,  new  postal  regu- 
lations, volume  of  business. 
News  of  the  parish,  church  ac- 
tivities, marriages,  deaths,  bap- 
tisms, news  from  other  appoint- 
ments if  town  is  on  a  circuit. 
General  news  items  of  the  "lo- 
cal" variety. 

"School  notes,"  notices  of 
teachers'  meetings,  school  im- 
provements, curriculum,  sports, 
contests  of  other  kinds,  grade 
lists,  "roll  of  honor,"  book 
adoptions,  school  sanitation. 


26 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


Rural  Letter  Carriers: — 

Justices  of  the  Peace: 
Physicians : — • 

Board  of  Health  :— 


Fraternal  Orders: — 


Town  Council: — 


Community  Clubs : — 


Local  Factories : — 


County  Officers: — 


Notes  from  the  country,  crop 
conditions,  road  conditions,  ru- 
ral mail  volume,  accidents,  fires, 
illness,  farm  improvements, 
change  of  renters  in  the  spring. 
Cases  on  the  docket,  trials,  ar- 
raignments, marriages. 
Cases  of  illness,  surgical  opera- 
tions, vital  statistics,  commun- 
ity health,  town  and  rural  sani- 
tation, accidents. 
Clean-up  campaigns,  violation 
of  health  ordinances,  garbage 
disposal,  care  of  alleys,  milk 
and  water  supply,  epidemics — 
human  and  animal,  health 
measures  in  general.  ' 

Personal  notes,  social  news, 
fraternal-benefit  work,  growth, 
new  officers,  building  and  im- 
provements. 

New  resolutions  and  ordi- 
nances, minutes  of  meetings, 
village  improvements,  proposed 
action. 

Social  news,  outline  of  study, 
program  of  meetings,  new 
members,  plans  for  advance- 
ment. 

Business     conditions,     growth, 
new   orders,    new    equipment, 
new  processes,  labor  conditions, 
personals,  accidents. 
Coroner:  Sudden  deaths,  mur- 
ders, suicides,  fatal  accidents. 
Clerk    of    the    Court:       Court 
business,    marriage    licenses 
(in  some  states). 
Sheriff:     Account   of   arrests, 
crime  in  general,  condition  of 
jail.  , 


LOCAL  NEWS 


27 


Hotels  :— 


Athletic  Teams 
and  Organizations : 


Street : — 


The  Newspaper  Office  :- 


County  Attorney :  Cases  pend- 
ing, etc. 
County  Clerk ;  County  Auditor : 
Business  affairs  of  the  coun- 
Board of  Supervisors  :     Roads 
and  highways,  administration 
of  county  farm,  general  busi- 
ness affairs  of  the  county. 
Probate  Court:    Wills,  estates. 
Recorder:    Transfers  of  prop- 
erty, mortgages. 
If  the  paper  is  published  in  the 
county  seat,  the  editor  can  call 
once  or  twice  a  week;  if  not, 
the    service    can   be    given   by 
someone  in  the  courthouse. 
Arrival      and      departure      of 
guests,  banquets,  luncheons,  so- 
cial   affairs,     interviews    with 
commercial  salesmen. 

Accounts  of  contests,  review  of 
season's  activities,  financial 
statements,  plans  for  expan- 
sion. 

Personal  items,  miscellaneous 
news  from  informal  conversa- 
tion. 

-Personal  items  from  people 
who  drop  in,  farm  news  from 
farmers  coming  in  on  business, 
business  news  from  advertisers, 
telephone  news. 


Covering  News  Sources. — In  the  city,  these  sources 
are  divided  among  the  reporters  into  "runs"  which  are 
covered  every  day,  usually  by  the  same  man.  On  the 
country  paper,  especially  on  the  one-man  paper,  the 


28  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

editor  must  cover  the  most  important  of  these  "runs," 
if  they  may  be  so  called,  and  depend  upon  the  volun- 
tary and  part-time  services  of  others  to  help  him. 
Every  man  is  unconsciously  a  reporter  and  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  country  news  gatherer  to  find  out  all  that 
he  can  from  the  various  sources  about  town.  By  de- 
veloping his  sources  of  news,  he  can  usually  build  up 
a  fairly  complete  system  of  news  gathering  which  will 
be  personal  and  accurate. 

One  country  editor  has  summed  up  the  technic  of 
news  gathering  as  follows :  "The  best  method  to  pur- 
1  sue  in  gathering  local  news  items  is  to  go  out  and  get 
them."  This  seems  a  bit  bald  at  first  glance  and  not 
much  more  enlightening  than  the  old  definition  which 
stated,  ''A  boomerang  is  a  boomerang."  But  this  ad- 
vice really  contains  some  fundamental  truth.  Country 
editors  are  proverbially  busy  and  are,  perhaps,  inclined 
to  depend  too  much  on  the  telephone  or  hearsay  for 
items  of  personal  interest.  The  telephone,  to  be  sure, 
is  a  valuable  asset  in  news  gathering,  but  it  should  not 
be  used  exclusively,  for  there  are  always  good  points 
of  news  that  do  not  develop  from  a  telephone  inter- 
view. Personal  conversation  face  to  face  is  the  best 
means  to  develop  news  facts.  If  it  is  at  all  possible, 
**go  out  and  get"  your  local  news  items.  It  will  take 
time,  and  it  may  not  be  wholly  pleasant  to  meet  trains 
and  ask  your  fellow  townsmen  where  they  are  going 
and  why.  But  these  same  folk  will  want  you  to  tell  in 
the  paper  all  about  their  little  journeyings,  and  get- 
ting the  news  is  of  sufficient  importance  to  warrant 
the  time,  trouble,  and  expense,  for  according  as  you 


LOCAL  NEWS  29 

fulfill  this  function  of  your  profession  will  your  right 
to  continued  existence  be  determined. 

But  to  ''go  out  and  get  them"  is  not  so  easy  as  it 
sounds,  as  any  country  editor  will  bear  witness.  Says 
the  Monroeville  (Ohio)  Spectator:  *'If  a  news-gath- 
erer should  meet  fifty  persons  a  day  and  should  put 
the  inquiry,  'Any  news?'  forty-nine  of  the  fifty  would 
reply,  'No-o-o,  I  guess  not/  when  at  the  same  time 
they  might  know  of  a  number  of  interesting  happen- 
ings that  would  help  make  the  paper  just  what  every- 
one wishes  it  to  be,  a  paper  full  of  the  news  of  the 
community.  So  if  the  item  you  expected  to  see  in 
print  is  not  there,  it  is  your  own  fault — you  failed  to 
inform  us  of  the  fact." 

Organizing  to  Cover  News  Sources. — The  news 
force  of  the  ordinary  country  paper  will  probably  not 
number  more  than  three  including  the  editor;  and  of 
these  three  perhaps  two  will  have  to  give  part  of  their 
time  to  the  work  of  the  back  office.  For  this  small 
force  to  gather  and  present  the  news  of  a  county  be- 
tween 20  and  30  miles  square,  and  with  a  population 
of  from  15,000  to  40,000  seems  an  almost  impossible 
task.  It  can  be  accomplished  only  by  a  systematic, 
careful  laying  out  of  the  field,  and  by  energetic  and 
unflagging  work  along  the  lines  laid  down  in  the  pre- 
liminary survey. 

An  assignment  book  is  as  necessary  for  the  country 
editor  as  for  the  city  editor  of  a  large  daily  paper, 
for  the  country  editor  has  more  than  merely  his  news- 
gathering  duties  to  perform,  and  must  usually  assume 
the  business  management  both  of  the  publishing  plant 


30  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

and  of  the  job  office.  He  cannot  charge  his  mind  with 
news  details  and  hope  to  keep  them  from  being  crowded 
out  by  other  facts  and  duties.  In  addition  to  these 
related  extra-editorial  duties,  the  country  editor  is  al- 
most universally  one  of  the  most  active  and  prominent 
citizens  of  the  town,  and  there  are  many  important 
outside  duties  that  take  his  time  and  attention  away 
from  his  professional  work. 

Nothing  should  be  left  to  chance.  The  local  field 
must  be  covered.  A  large  daily  calendar  pad  can  be 
used  for  the  notation  of  coming  events  or  '"futures." 
There  should  be  a  well-arranged  pocket  notebook  for 
data  of  all  kinds.  Don't  use  the  back  of  an  envelope 
or  loose  sheets  of  paper.  This  may  appear  to  be  a 
trivial  caution  but,  if  it  is  a  trifle  at  all,  it  is  one  of 
those  trifles  upon  which  success  is  built.  It  is  always 
well  to  take  a  little  time  to  do  things  which  are  not 
absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  save  valuable  time 
later.  System  also  promotes  accuracy,  than  which 
there  is  nothing  more  vital  in  the  gathering  and  pres- 
entation of  news.  Many  editors  have  found  it  help- 
ful to  go  over  carefully  every  issue  of  the  paper  and 
note  in  the  ^'future''  book  all  coming  events  mentioned. 
If  there  is  a  competitor,  as  there  is  likely  to  be  if  the 
field  is  a  good  one,  it  is  even  more  important  that 
his  paper  should  be  examined.  It  is  fatal  to  allow 
anything  to  slip;  fatal  in  the  specific  instance,  and 
deadly  in  the  habit  of  mind  it  induces.  Any  plan  that 
is  easily  workable,  that  will  systematize  the  work  in 
the  office,  is  a  good  one. 

A  plan  of  work  for  the  week  is  of  great  assistance 


LOCAL  NEWS  31 

to  the  editor  in  systematizing  his  work.  Such  a  plan, 
which  may  be  worked  with  slight  modification  in  any 
country  office,  follows : 

Thursday:  Assuming  that  the  paper  is  published 
on  Thursday  morning,  the  day  would  be  de- 
voted to  press-work,  wash-up  press  and 
forms,  mailing,  sorting  and  clearing  exchange 
files,  distribution,  and  general  local  news  at 
trains,  etc. 

Friday  and  Saturday:  Mainly  job  work,  though 
such  reportorial  work  as  meeting  trains,  etc., 
would  be  continued.  Some  of  the  ad  changes 
can  be  done  on  Saturday,  and  the  books  and 
cost-finding  forms  should  be  balanced  for  the 
week. 

Monday:  New  ads  should  be  set,  rush  job  work 
done,  circulation  letters  and  bills  sent  out,  job 
bills  mailed  out  and  new  jobs  routed,  school 
notes  and  church  notes  edited,  routine  news 
gathering  continued,  and  typesetting  for  the 
Thursday  issue  begun. 

Tuesday :  The  day  should  be  given  to  composition, 
editing  country  correspondence,  which  ought  to 
be  in  the  office  not  later  than  noon,  Tuesday, 
setting  ads,  and  covering  news  runs. 

Wednesday:  Late  news  stories,  editing,  proofread- 
ing, composition,  make-up,  and  make-ready. 

Whatever  may  be  the  method  employed  to  systema- 
tize the  work,  there  is  only  one  thing  by  which  to 


aa  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

judge  the  effectiveness  of  the  organization,  and  that 
is  the  criterion  by  which  the  public  will  inevitably 
judge:  Does  the  paper  have  the  news?  If  it  does 
that,  it  can  be  said  to  fulfill  its  primary  mission.  If  it 
does  not,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said,  and  there 
is  another  wreck  in  country  journalism. 

Neglecting  Real  Values. — The  country  editor  must 
not  be  content  with  reporting  the  bare  facts  of  the 
news;  he  must  suck  the  juice  entirely  out  of  the 
orange.  No  item  should  be  allowed  to  go  before  the 
public  until  the  editor  has  extracted  every  atom  of 
news  value  it  can  have.  The  editors  who  make  the 
loudest  cry  concerning  the  paucity  of  news  are  usually 
those  who  habitually,  either  from  supposed  lack  of 
time  or  from  ineptitude,  disregard  the  value  of  the 
news  which  they  gather  and  present.  It  scarcely  need 
be  said  that  such  men  utterly  fail  in  the  role  of  editor. 
They  have  the  field  before  them  but  disregard  its  plain- 
est possibilities. 

Following  are  some  examples  of  cases  where  news 
values  have  been  neglected.  They  are  taken  from 
weekly  papers  of  the  Middle  West. 


(1) 


The  seventh  annual  dairy  picnic  held 
last  Friday  was  a  great  success.  Come 
again,  boys. 


It  is  perfectly  plain  that  the  foregoing  item  in  no 
way  meets  the  requirements  of  good  reporting.  We 
are  not  even  sure  that  the  picnic  was  held  in  the  town 
where  the  paper  was  published,  though  it  is  probable, 
since  the  editor  asks  the  ''boys''  to  come  again.     If 


LOCAL  NEWS 


33 


the  dairy  picnic  has  survived  seven  years,  there  is  evi- 
dently something  vital  about  it;  it  must  in  some  re- 
spects meet  a  demand  for  that  sort  of  thing.  The 
paper  from  which  this  item  was  clipped  circulates  in 
a  rich  farming  community  where  dairying  is  one  of 
the  principal  activities.  Since  it  was  printed  six  days 
after  the  picnic  was  held,  there  was  ample  time  for 
the  editor  to  write  a  full  account  of  the  affair;  yet  it 
was  dismissed  with  three  or  four  lines — and  that,  too, 
in  a  paper  which  had  less  than  two  columns  of  local 
news,  and  where  ''boiler  plate''  filler  was  used  telling 
of  the  average  annual  rainfall  of  India  and  the  condi- 
tion of  the  herring  industry  in  Norway. 

The  following  ''lead,''  clipped  from  another  paper 
in  the  same  state,  deals  with  the  same  kind  of  a  picnic, 
which  is  "covered"  by  a  well-written  story  of  over  two 
columns  in  length.  The  editor  was  alive  to  the  news 
value  of  the  story  and  developed  it.  There  was  also 
editorial  comment.  The  whole  stpry  is  good  enough  to 
reproduce,  but  lack  of  space  prevents.  It  is  obvious  to 
anyone  who  reads  it  that  the  editor  was  alive  to  the 
opportunities  of  his  business. 


More  than  1500  people  from  all  parts 
of  the  county  and  from  adjoining  coun- 
ties joined  with  our  townspeople  in  the 
tenth  Annual  Dairy  Picnic  held  here 
last  Wednesday.  The  weather  was  per- 
fect, the  exhibits  even  better  than  usual, 
and  the  principal  address  of  the  day, 
delivered  at  the  Opera  House  by  Profes- 
sor J.  B.  Wilson  of  the  State  College, 
was  declared  to  be  the  best  and  most 
practical  address  ever  delivered  here  on 
the  subject  of  better  dairy  stock. 


34  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Another  example  of  neglected  news  value  follows : 


(2) 


Many  of  our  citizens  enjoyed  the 
music  furnished  by  the  band  brought 
along  by  the  Cedar  City  commercial  club 
special  last  Thursday.  The  club  stayed 
in  town  an  hour. 


There  is  not  a  word  about  the  purpose  of  the  spe- 
cial trip  which  the  commercial  club  was  making  to  all 
the  towns  along  the  line.  Where  was  the  editor  during 
that  hour  in  which  the  visitors  circulated  among  the 
business  men  of  the  village?  There  was  material  for 
at  least  a  quarter  column  and  for  editorial  comment 
besides;  but  the  editor  had  an  undeveloped  sense  of 
news  values  and  let  the  occasion  slip. 

Following  is  a  story  from  one  of  the  other  papers 
along  the  line  of  railroad,  adapted  to  fit  conditions  in 
the  town  above.  The  story,  while  far  from  faultless, 
gives  the  news  in  detail  and  without  prejudice.  It  is 
a  fair  example  of  good,  e very-day  country  reporting. 


From  10:30  to  11:30  last  Thursday 
morning  the  town  belonged  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Cedar  City  commercial  club, 
who  came  on  a  special  train  on  which 
they  are  touring  this  section  of  the 
state  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  bet- 
ter business  relations  between  the  local 
merchants  and  the  business  men  of  the 
Parlor  City. 

Accompanied  by  the  band,  the  whole 
delegation,  numbering  well  over  a  hun- 
dred, marched  down  Main  street  to  the 
bridge.  They  then  countermarched  to 
the  square  near  the  post  office,  where  they 
were  met  by  business  men  of  the  town. 
Cigars  were  handed  about  and  smoke- 
talk  and  business  talk  became  the  order 


LOCAL  NEWS 


35 


of  the  day.  The  band  continued  to  play, 
and  most  of  the  towns-people  were  pres- 
ent to  hear  the  music.  There  was  no 
program  or  speech-making  because  it 
was  in  the  nature  of  an  informal  "get- 
together"  party. 

To  a  representative  of  the  News 
John  R.  Peterson,  secretary  of  the  club, 
said:  "We  are  trying  to  get  acquainted 
with  the  business  men  in  the  part  of 
the  state  which  is  properly  tributary  to 
Cedar  City.  We  believe  that  closer  busi- 
ness relations  should  be  established,  and 
we  are  sure  that  one  way  to  bring  this 
about  is  to  establish  cordial  personal  re- 
lations." 

The  delegation  left  town  on  the  spe- 
cial train  at  11:30  headed  for  Ardale, 
where  they  were  scheduled  to  make  the 
dinner  stop.  The  Cedar  City  men 
seemed  to  make  a  good  impression  on 
people  here. 


The  third  example  shows  neglect  of  the 
interest''  side  of  the  story. 


'human 


(3) 


"Uncle  Jimmy"  Nelson,  who  has 
lived  in  this  community  since  he  took 
up  a  government  homestead  in  1855, 
died  at  the  county  farm  a  couple  of 
weeks  ago. 


This  story  as  it  stands  is  no  more  than  the  ''lead" 
of  the  real  story  that  could  have  been  written.  The 
essential  facts  are  reported,  but  the  interest  is  not  fol- 
lowed up  nor  developed.  A  man  who  has  lived  in  a 
community  for  60  years  deserves  more  than  casual 
mention  when  he  dies.  If  he  had  at  one  time  owned 
160  acres  of  farming  land,  how  did  it  happen  that, 
with  land  selling  at  high  prices,  he  died  a  pauper  at 
the  county  farm?  There  must  have  been  many  people 


/ 


36  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

in  the  community  who  could  furnish  interesting  details  j 
of  news  about  a  man  who  had  lived  among  them  for 
more  than  a  half -century. 

The  news  instinct  consists  not  alone  in  a  ''nose  for 
news/'  the  ability  to  dig  out  the  mere  facts  of  local 
happenings.  It  consists  of  all  this  and,  in  addition,  of 
the  ability  to  extract  the  full  measure  of  human  in- 
terest a  story  may  have.  Is  there  anything  you  have 
left  untold  that  you  would  like  to  know  if  you  were 
reading  the  article  instead  of  writing  it?  If  so,  put 
in  the  details.  Have  you  told  the  when,  where,  why, 
who,  how,  and  what?  If  not,  gtt  them  into  the  story 
before  the  story  gets  into  the  paper.  There  is  no  ne- 
cessity for  padding;  there  is  no  need  to  have  your 
columns  thin.  The  meat  is  there  if  the  reporter  or 
editor  has  a  real  sense  of  news  values. 

*Teatures''  in  the  News. — No  matter  how  care- 
fully the  editor  lays  out  his  field  and  cultivates  his 
sources,  no  matter  how  thoroughly  he  exploits  the 
news  values  of  his  field,  there  will  always  be  weeks 
in  every  year  when  there  will  seem  to  be  absolutely 
nothing  happening  that  will  make  news.  There  will  be 
no  fires,  no  elopements,  no  marriages,  births,  or  deaths. 
What  are  you  going  to  do  then  ?  Edit  your  paper  with 
a  saw,  or  with  the  shears  ?  You  are  probably  saving 
for  the  proverbial  "rainy  day"  and  have  a  little  money 
laid  aside  to  tide  you  over  illness  or  other  misfortune. 
Why  not  apply  the  same  business  foresight  to  your 
newspaper  activities?  Keep  a  list  of  possible  feature 
articles  on  your  desk  and  write  them  from  time  to 
time  to  use  in  case  of  need.    They  always  make  good 


LOCAL  NEWS  37 

reading  and  will  save  the  day  many  times  when  you 
are  short  in  some  of  the  departments  of  your  paper. 

H.  M.  Wheelock,  of  Wheelock's  Weekly,  Fergus 
Falls,  Minnesota,  advocates  this  plan  vigorously.  He 
has  divided  the  field  into  the  following  departments : 
(i)  Historical;  (2)  biographical;  (3)  prospective; 
(4)  farms  and  land  development;  (5)  scenic  and  cli- 
mate; (6)  factories  and  industries;  (7)  sources  of 
growth;  (8)  town  needs;  (9)  educational  and  relig- 
ious; (10)  local  specialties;  and  (11)  freaks  and  cu- 
riosities. There  are  no  doubt  others  that  will  occur 
to  you  which  will  fit  in  with  your  particular  problem. 
Keep  a  few  of  these  written  ahead  and  see  if  it  does 
not  pay  you  for  the  extra  time  involved.  A  more 
careful  study  of  your  exchanges  will  give  you  ideas  for 
all  departments  of  your  paper  and  will  make  it  a  bet- 
ter product.  If  you  can  use  a  cut  now  and  then  with 
a  story,  the  feature  will  carry  still  better.  Many  coun- 
try weeklies  are  doing  this  now  with  success.  It  is  not 
patented.     Try  it  in  your  paper. 

Space  is  lacking  in  the  present  discussion  to  cite 
specific  examples  at  any  length ;  but  one  is  so  unusual 
and  so  full  of  individuality  as  to  merit  special  men- 
tion. Up  in  Michigan  there  is  a  tiny  little  six-page  f 
7  x  II  printed  on  an  old  hand  press.  It  is  called  thel 
Hadley  Clipper.  Under  the  general  heading  ''Home/ 
P^olks"  it  runs  ''obituaries"  of  the  living  instead  or 
waiting  until  after  the  death  of  the  subjects.  Such  a 
feature  might  easily  degenerate  into  fulsome  and  venal 
flattery,  but,  rightly  handled,  it  is  a  legitimate  asset.  If 
the  editor  has  a  good  balancing  pole,  such  a  feature 


38  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

may  be  made  very  attractive.  But  whatever  kind  of 
features  you  decide  to  use,  put  careful  work  on  them. 
News  can  be  carelessly  written,  sometimes,  and  still  be 
read  because  of  the  intrinsic  value  of  its  content.  But 
in  the  majority  of  cases  feature  articles  owe  their 
popularity  to  the  freshness  and  variety  of  their  presen- 
tation. 

The  MaMng  of  a  Local. — Street  work  is  very  ef- 
fective and  many  news  items  come  from  casual  con- 
tacts on  the  street,  in  stores,  and  chiefly  in  the  post 
office.  For  example,  the  editor  waiting  for  his  mail 
sees  a  furniture  van  pass  by  loaded  with  household 
goods.  No  one  seems  to  know  whose  the  goods  are, 
but  the  editor  notes  that  the  van  stops  for  a  few  min- 
utes in  front  of  the  meat  market.  After  he  has  got 
his  mail,  he  stops  in  at  the  market  to  get  meat  for  his 
dinner. 

''Whose  furniture  was  that,  Cutler?"  the  editor 
asks. 

''Adolph  Juninger's,"  replies  Cutler.  "He's  my  new 
clerk." 

"Where's  he  going  to  live?" 

"Up  in  the  old  Gibbs  place." 

"Do  you  mean  the  one  Stanton  bought?" 

"Yeah." 

"Where's  he  from?" 

"Janesville." 

"Family  with  him?" 

"Yeah;  wife  and  two  kids.     They've  been  staying 
in  Madison  for  a  while.     Stored  the  goods  in  Janes- 
'ville  till  they  got  ready  to  come." 


LOCAL  NEWS  39 

By  this  time  the  editor's  meat  is  ready  and  he  goes 
back  to  the  office  to  write  the  various  stories  he  has 
picked  up.  The  next  issue  of  the  paper  carries  an  item 
as  follows: 

Adolph  Juninger,  clerk  in  the  Cutler 
meat  market,  has  rented  the  Gibbs  house 
now  owned  by  Nowell  Stanton  and  has 
moved  his  household  goods  up  from 
Janesville  this  week  where  they  were 
stored.  His  wife  and  two  children,  who 
have  been  staying  at  Madison  for  some 
time,  have  joined  him  here. 

The  ** Multiple  Source'*  Story. — Not  all  news  sto- 
ries are  so  easy  to  get  and  so  easy  to  write  as  the  local 
item  given  above.  There  are  many  stories  the  material 
for  which  will  have  to  be  gained  from  several  sources. 
These  are  usually  the  longer  and  more  important 
stories,  and  are  often  worked  out  from  a  mere  sug- 
gestion or  by  the  development  of  the  *'local  end''  of 
some  news  story  published  in  papers  from  other  towns. 

For  example,  the  editor,  reading  carelessly  the  list 
of  wedding  licenses  in  one  of  his  exchanges,  notes  the 
names,  ^'Edward  Martin,  27,  Smithville,  and  Isabel 
Guernsey,  23,  Kingsley."     He  turns  to  his  assistant: 

*'Lord!  Tom,  Ed  Martin's  taken  out  a  wedding  li- 
cense in  Kingsley.  Ain't  he  the  smooth  bird,  though? 
When  he  went  away  the  other  day  he  told  me  at  the 
station  that  he  was  going  to  the  western  part  of  the 
state  on  some  private  business." 

Tom  grins.  "Well,  I  guess  he  has.  Getting  mar- 
ried is  about  as  private  a  thing  as  a  man  can  do  even 
if  it's  a  public  wedding.'' 


40 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


"Who's  this  Isabel  Guernsey,  Tom?  Did  you  ever 
hear  of  her?'' 

''Sure.  She's  Amy  King's  cousin.  She  was  here 
on  a  visit  last  summer.  That's  when  Ed  got  acquaint- 
ed with  her." 

The  editor  reaches  for  his  hat.  'Tm  going  to  find 
out  about  this.  I  don't  believe  Ed  intended  folks  at 
home  to  know  about  it  until  later.  I  won't  trust  the 
telephone  on  this  story." 

The  next  morning  the  editor  hands  Tom  the  copy 
for  the  Martin  story.  ''I  had  quite  a  time  getting 
that,"  he  remarks.  'The  old  folks  didn't  know  any- 
thing about  it,  bpt  they  got  busy  with  the  telegraph. 
Ed  admitted  it  and  said  that  they  would  be  married 
next  Saturday.  Guess  he  got  the  license  early  so  he 
wouldn't  lose  his  courage.  I  called  at  Kings'  and 
found  out  about  the  girl.  They  didn't  know  it  either. 
It  seems  Ed  and  the  girl  thought  it  would  be  fun  to 
give  Smithville  folks  a  surprise,  and  they'd  have  done 
it  too  if  I  hadn't  seen  that  notice  in  the  Kingsley  paper. 
Of  course  the  girl's  folks  were  in  on  the  deal." 

The  story,  as  Tom  put  it  into  type,  read  as  follows : 


The  friends  of  Edward  L.  Martin  will 
be  surprised  to  learn  that  on  Saturday 
of  this  week  he  will  be  married  to  Miss 
Isabel  Guernsey  at  Kingsley.  Miss 
Guernsey  is  a  cousin  of  Miss  Amy  King 
of  this  place  and  has  visited  here  at 
various  times.  She  has  made  many 
friends  in  Smithville  who  extend  to  her 
and  Mr.  Martin  their  best  wishes  for  a 
happy   and  prosperous   life. 

Mr.  Martin  had  intended  to  keep  the 
matter  a  secret  from  his  Smithville 
friends  until  after  the  ceremony,   dis- 


LOCAL  NEWS 


41 


guising  his  trip  under  the  mask  of  "pri- 
vate business" — which  it  undoubtedly 
was.  Neither  his  parents,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Henry  Martin,  nor  Miss  King  the  cousin 
of  the  bride,  knew  anything  of  the  pro- 
jected marriage.  The  plan  was  dis- 
covered by  a  chance  reading  of  the  wed- 
ding licenses  in  the  Kingsley  Observer. 
The  News  is  sorry  to  have  to  spoil  the 
surprise  Mr.  Martin  had  arranged  for 
his  friends,  but  joins  with  them  in 
hearty  congratulations. 

Following  a  short  trip  to  Chicago, 
Peoria,  and  other  points,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Martin  will  be  at  home  to  their  friends 
after  October  15  in  Monroe  avenue. 


IIL     Writing  the  News 

In  writing  a  news  story  there  are  always  two  things 
to  be  considered:  (i)  The  structure,  and  (2)  the 
style.  The  first  has  to  do  with  the  method  of  ar- 
ranging the  material ;  the  second  with  the  form  of  ex- 
pression. 

I.  Structure 

News  Story  Structure. — News  stories  are  usually 
classified  according  to  length  as  news  paragraphs  or 
longer  news  stories.  But  there  is  something  more  than 
merely  a  question  of  length  involved;  there  is  also  the 
question  of  structure.  The  short  news  paragraph, 
usually  from  20  to  40.  words  in  length,  is  ordinarily 
called  the  *'Iocal."  It  is  supposed  to  be  a  brief  state- 
ment of  a  fact,  interesting  perhaps,  but  not  of  especial 
importance.  It  is  supposed  to  give  the  principal  facts 
concerning  the  news  in  hand.  The  longer  news  story, 
however,  is  built  upon  a  different  plan.  It  gives  in  the 
first  paragraph  all  the  important  facts  necessary  to 


42  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

present  a  definite  statement,  but  in  the  following  parts 
of  the  story  are  given  amplifications  and  additional  re- 
lated facts  which  make  the  whole  story  more  definite 
and  clear.  The  first  part  of  the  story,  the  part  that 
tells  the  facts  before  going  into  details,  is  called  the 
"lead/'     The  rest  of  the  story  is  called  the  body. 

Leads  are  of  two  kinds:  (i)  Summary,  and  (2) 
unconventional.  It  is  the  function  of  the  summary 
lead  to  tell  the  who,  where,  when,  why,  how,  and  what 
of  the  story  so  plainly  and  briefly  that  the  reader  will 
be  able  to  get  the  facts  from  the  lead  alone.  Also, 
these  facts  ought  to  be  told  so  interestingly  that  the 
reader  will  be  led  to  read  farther  and  get  all  the  de- 
tails. The  unconventional  lead  presents  its  facts  in  a 
more  leisurely  manner.  It  is  not  always  possible  to 
get  all  the  facts  from  reading  an  unconventional  lead, 
for  very  often  it  conceals  something  important  in  or- 
der to  work  up  to  a  climax  of  interest  later  in  the 
story.  Conventional  newspaper  style  avoids  the  climax 
and  states  the  truth  as  quickly  and  in  as  orderly  a  man- 
ner as  possible.  The  reason  for  this,  of  course,  is  that 
facts  must  be  told  briefly  in  a  newspaper  because  of 
the  lack  of  space.  The  summary  lead  of  a  story  is 
simply  a  ''local."  Every  well-written  local  will  tell 
the  who,  why,  where,  when,  how,  and  what.  The 
longer  story  is  merely  an  expansion  of  the  local;  an 
amplification  of  detail.  Every  story,  however  short, 
should  be  complete  in  itself  and  the  information  should 
satisfy  the  normal  curiosity  of  the  reader.  The  fol- 
lowing rather  long  local  clipped  from  a  country  weekly 
illustrates  this  point. 


Who?  John  Rich- 
ards. 

Where  ?  Near  Le- 
high. 

When?  Last  Sat- 
urday. 

Why?  Buck  driv- 
en into  open. 

How?  Shot  buck 
at  80  yards. 

What  ?  He  got  the 
game. 


LOCAL  NEWS  43 

John  Richards,  who  had  been  hunt- 
ing near  Lehigh  since  the  season  opened, 
decided  last  Saturday  to  give  up  the 
chase  and  come  home  without  his  deer. 
As  he  sat  in  the  station  waiting  for  his 
train,  he  heard  quite  a  commotion  out- 
side and  went  out  to  see  what  it  was 
all  about.  A  fine  buck  had  been  driven 
out  into  the  open  and  Mr.  Richards  took 
aim  and  hit  him  in  the  shoulder  at  a 
distance  of  80  yards.  In  another  half- 
hour  he  had  his  game  loaded  on  the 
train  for  home.  The  deer  weighed  190 
pounds,  and  Mr.  Richards  feels  pretty 
good  over  his  lucky  hunt. 


Emphasis  in  the  Lead.— The  chief  aim  of  the 
newspaper  reporter  is  to  put  his  story  into  such  form  as 
will  carry  to  the  readers  the  idea  he  wishes  to  convey 
with  just  the  degree  of  emphasis  he  wishes  it  to  have. 
This  emphasis  may  be  secured  in  three  ways:  (i) 
Selection  of  material;  (2)  proportion;  and  (3)  ar- 
rangement. In  beginning  the  story,  then,  the  writer 
selects  from  the  mass  of  materials  he  has  gathered 
that  which  he  considers  significant ;  he  then  assigns  to 
these  various  facts  the  amount  of  space  he  thinks  they 
are  worth  as  news ;  and,  finally,  he  decides  the  position 
in  the  story  of  the  facts  he  wishes  to  **play  up.''  In  a 
news  story  the  most  emphatic  place  is  at  the  very  be- 
ginning, and  no  important  fact  is  held  in  reserve  for 
fear  that  a  careless  or  rapid  reader  might  miss  the 
point.  The  conventional  news  story  has  nothing  to 
conceal  or  hold  back;  everything  vital  is  told  plainly 
in  the  first  paragraph.  Because  of  this  fact,  the  lead 
calls  for  careful  work  because  it  is  a  summary  that 
is  ofifered  the  reader  with  the  hope  that  he  may  take 
the  time  to  read  the  whole  story.     There  can  be  np 


44 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


delay  in  a  news  story.  White  space  is  limited  and  the 
story  must  get  under  way  at  once.  The  ^'feature"  of 
the  story — the  part  that  is  to  be  especially  emphasized 
as  being  the  most  interesting  or  unusual  thing  in  the 
story — must  be  played  up  in  the  first  part  of  the  very 
first  sentence  to  call  attention  to  it,  just  as  the  window 
dresser  plays  up  in  the  window  the  feature  bargains  of 
the  day  at  his  store.  The  lead  should  always  point  out 
emphatically  just  what  is  the  feature  of  the  story. 

Various  methods  of  emphasizing  in  the  lead  certain 
aspects  of  the  news  are  shown  by  the  following  ex- 
amples. These  are  the  bare  facts  as  jotted  down  by 
the  reporter : 

George  Stephani  hurt — Motor  car  collision — Hit  con- 
crete shoulder — Turn  near  half-way  house — Two  Rivers 
road — Saturday  night — Had  attended  good  roads  meet- 
ing— Car  wrecked — Drove  the  old  car — Supervisors 
warned  road  was  dangerous — Dr.  Thayer  in  charge — 
Kids  feel  bad — Old  car  was  their  favorite — George  let 
them  drive  it. 

(i)  Person:  Here 
the  name  is  played 
up.  Not  all  the 
facts  are  used. 

(2)  Time:  The 
time  is  not  usually 
a  feature.  Here, 
however,  it  is 
played  up  because 
of  the  ironic  fact 
that  the  victim  had 
just  attended  a 
good  roads  meet- 
ing. 


George  Stephani.  of  this  city  was 
seriously  injured  Saturday  as  he  was  re- 
turning from  Two  Rivers.  His  car  ran 
into  the  concrete  shoulder  on  the  turn 
near  the  half-way  house  and  was 
wrecked. 

While  he  was  returning  from  a  good 
roads  meeting  at  Two  Rivers  Saturday 
night,  George  Stephani  of  this  city  was 
seriously  injured  when  his  car  ran  into 
the  concrete  shoulder  on  the  turn  near 
the  half-way  house.  The  car  was 
wrecked. 


LOCAL  NEWS 


45 


(3)  Place:  Here 
the  feature  is  the 
place  of  the  acci- 
dent. It  weakens 
the  lead  because  it 
is  unimportant. 

(4)  Immediate 
Cause :  Here  no 
reason  is  given  for 
the  accident  aside 
from  the  fact  of 
the  driver's  losing 
control  of  his  car. 
It  is  in  effect  a  sup- 
pression of  news 
facts. 

(5)  Responsibility: 
This  lead  editorial- 
izes to  the  effect 
that  county  officials 
are  to  blame  for 
the  accident.  This 
is  an  example  of 
the  '"clothesline" 
lead  which  con- 
nects all  the  facts 
together  in  a  string. 
It  is  to  be  avoided 
because  of  its  awk- 
wardness and  lack 
of  clearness. 

(6)  Effect:  This 
plays  up  the  results 
of  the  accident. 
This  lead  would  be 
effective  in  the  case 
of  a  follow-up 
story  of  the  acci- 
dent. 


On  the  Two  Rivers  road  near  the 
half-way  house  last  Saturday  night 
George  Stephani  of  this  city  was  seri- 
ously injured  and  his  car  wrecked  by  a 
collision  with  the  concrete  shoulder  at 
the  turn.  Stephani  was  returning  from 
a  good  roads  meeting  at  Two  Rivers. 

Losing  control  of  his  car  as  he  was 
returning  from  Two  Rivers  last  Satur- 
day night,  George  Stephani  of  this  city 
was  seriously  injured  and  his  car 
wrecked  by  a  collision  with  the  concrete 
shoulder  on  the  turn  near  the  half-way 
house. 


Because  of  failure  on  the  part  of 
county  officials  to  keep  the  road  in 
proper  repair,  George  Stephani  of  this 
city  was  seriously  injured  Saturday 
night  as  he  was  returning  from  Two 
Rivers  in  his  c.ar  which  collided  with 
the  concrete  shoulder  on  the  turn  near 
the  half-way  house  and  was  wrecked. 


"With  careful  nursing  George  will 
pull  through,"  was  the  verdict  of  Dr. 
J.  B.  Thayer,  who  has  charge  of  the 
case  of  George  Stephani,  who  was  hurt 
last  Saturday  night  when  his  car  was 
wrecked  against  the  concrete  shoulder 
near  the  half-way  house  on  the  Two 
Rivers   road. 


46 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


(7)  Sentiment  or 
Human  Interest : 
This  plays  up  the 
fact  that  it  is  the 
old  car  that  is 
wrecked.  If  it  had 
been  the  new  car 
no  one  would  have 
been  concerned. 
The  man  takes  a 
subordinate  place 
in  this  lead.  This 
is  an  example  of 
the  ^'cartridge" 
lead,  which  gives 
the  facts  in  short 
staccato  sentences. 
It  is  a  useful  lead 
to  express  forceful 
facts  and  drive 
them  home. 

(8)  Striking  Cir- 
cumstances :  This 
lead  plays  up  the 
irony  of  circum- 
stances and  draws 
conclusions  from 
the  facts.  It  is 
really  an  editorial 
lead. 


To^  say  that  half  the  "kids"  in  town 
are  in  mourning  is  no  exaggeration. 
George  Stephani's  old  car  is  wrecked. 
Nearly  every  boy  in  town  has  learned 
to  drive  on  the  old  "boat"  Some  of 
the  girls  too.  It  happened  Saturday 
night.  George  lost  control  of  the  car 
and  the  old  favorite  piled  up  against  the 
concrete  shoulder  on  the  Two  Rivers 
road.  George  was  badly  hurt.  He  wiH 
recover,  but  the  old  car  has  gone  to  the 
Ford  heaven. 


That  a  careful  driver  like  George 
Stephani  should  wreck  his  car  against 
the  concrete  shoulder  near  the  half-way 
house  within  fifteen  minutes  after  he  had 
been  speaking  at  a  good  roads  meeting 
at  Two  Rivers  proves  that  good  roads 
are  needed.  George  was  seriously  in- 
jured, but  will  recover. 


Beginning  the  Sentence. — In  order  to  present  the 
feature  effectively,  it  is  necessary  often  to  use  different 
grammatical  forms  of  sentence  beginnings :  A  word, 
a  phrase,  a  clause,  a  quotation.  The  most  common 
types  of  sentence  beginnings  are : 

(i)  The  subject  of  the  sentence; 


LOCAL  NEWS  47 

"George  Stephani  of  this  city  was  seriously  injured," 
etc. 

(2)  A  prepositional  phrase: 

"On  the  Two  Rivers  road  near  the  half-way  house," 
etc. 

(3)  A  substantive  clause: 

"That  a  careful  dri-ver  like  George  Stephani,"  etc. 

(4)  A  participial  phrase: 

"Losing  control  of  his  car  as  he  was  returning,"  etc. 

(5)  A  direct  quotation: 

"With  careful  nursing  George  will  pull  through,"  etc. 

(6)  An  infinitive  phrase: 

"To  say  that  half  the  'kids'  in  town,"  etc. 

(7)  A  dependent  clause: 

"Because  of  failure  on  the  part  of  county  officials,"  etc. 

It  is  well  for  the  young  writer  to  familiarize  himself 
with  all  these  forms  in  order  that  his  style  may  not 
lack  variety  of  sentence  beginnings. 

Leads  in  the  Country  Weekly. — In  the  rural  pa- 
per, conventional  structure — the  structure  that  gives 
all  important  facts  first  and  then  amplifies  them — is 
not  quite  so  important  and  necessary  as  in  the  larger 


48 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


papers  of  the  city.  Metropolitan  dailies  that  issue 
several  editions  each  day  must  use  the  summary  lead 
so  that,  in  case  parts  of  the  story  are  dropped  in  sub- 
sequent editions,  the  essential  facts  can  still  be  learned 
from  the  lead.  Also,  the  summary  lead  facilitates 
rapid  reading.  In  the  country  a  narrative,  conversa- 
tional style  is  very  commonly  used,  though  there  is  a 
growing  tendency  toward  the  conventional  form  of 
writing.  The  following  story  is  written  in  a  loose,  un- 
conventional style;  one  must  read  it  all  to  get  the 
facts : 

Nels  Peterson  of  the  town  of  Forest- 
ville  is  a  rather  heavy  loser  as  the  re- 
sult of  the  recent  heavy  snowfall  two 
weeks  ago.  The  roof  of  his  large  ma- 
chine shed  40  X  20  feet  caved  in  under 
the  weight  of  the  snow  which  accumu- 
lated on  the  roof  during  that  time.  In 
the  fall  the  roof  struck  a  buggy,  a  corn- 
binder,  a  two-horse  cultivator,  and  a 
cutter,  badly  damaging  them.  The 
buggy  and  cutter  are  reported  to  have 
been   demolished. 


Organization  of  the  Body  of  the  Story. — The 

following  news  story  from  a  country  weekly  shows 
how  news  of  sufficient  length  and  importance  should  be 
organized.  The  reporter  has  brought  out  the  facts 
tersely  and  emphatically : 


Summary  Lead : 
This  tells  all  the 
facts  necessary  to 
an  understanding 
of  the  event.  It  is 
really  a  news 
"local." 


Captain  A.  R.  Robinson  of  the  Pitts- 
burg Steamship  company's  steamer,  the 
William  J.  Olcott,  succumbed  to  a  sud- 
den attack  of  apoplexy  last  Friday 
morning  while  the  steamer  was  some- 
where between  Kewaunee  and  this  point. 


LOCAL  NEWS 


49 


Effect:  Elaborated 
by  full  facts :  Capt. 
apparently  well — 
Retired  to  state- 
room— Found  un- 
conscious by  mate 
— Details  prior  to 
death  —  Circum- 
stances of  death — 
Suggested  cause. 


Cause :  Amplified 
by  details  subse- 
quent to  the  death 
and  by  official  pro- 
nouncement o  f 
cause. 

Resultant  Action : 
Details  of  official 
report  and  report 
to  relatives. 

Personal  Details : 
A  few  '*human  in- 
terest'' facts. 


Captain  Robinson  had  eaten  a  very 
hearty  breakfast  that  morning  and  had 
gone  into  his  stateroom.  He  had  not 
been  seen  by  any  of  the  men  on  the 
ship  for  about  an  hour  when  the  first 
mate,  M.  J.  Supple,  went  into  the  state- 
room to  speak  to  him.  The  captain  was 
not  in  the  stateroom,  so  the  mate  con- 
tinued into  the  bathroom  and  found  him 
unconscious  on  the  floor.  Supple  im- 
mediately called  a  couple  of  the  crew 
who  picked  the  captain  up  and  put  him 
on  the  bed.  Everything  possible  was 
done  to  resuscitate  him,  but  to  no  avail. 

The  steamer  dropped  anchor  about  a 
mile  and  a  half  off  this  port  and  the 
second  officer  and  chief  engineer  rowed 
in  to  obtain  medical  assistance.  They 
took  Dr.  O.  B.  Lambert  out  to  the  boat. 
He  examined  the  body  and  pronounced 
the  captain  dead,  the  cause  being 
apoplexy. 

The  men  came  ashore  again  and  tele- 
graphed to  relatives  of  the  dead  man 
and  to  officers  of  the  steamship  com- 
pany for  orders. 

Captain  Robinson  was  60  years  old 
and  was  a  man  of  very  good  habits. 
He  lived  in  Cleveland  and  leaves  a 
widow  and  three  children. 


Examples  of  Unconventional  Structure. — Be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  country  readers  are  likely  to 
read  all  the  news  for  its  intrinsic  content  despite  faults 
of  structure,  the  editor  sometimes  grows  careless  in 
his  writing.  As  a  result  the  stories  are  poorly  and 
loosely  organized  and  do  not  seize  and  hold  the  atten- 
tion as  they  should.  The  following  story  is  a  case  in 
point.  The  whole  thing  is  vaguely  written ;  one  is  not 
sure  the  anonymous  gentleman  was  present  at  the  ban- 
quet, or  whether  Mr.  Whelan  was  the  only  speaker. 


so 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


The  Commercial  Club  banquet  was 
held  here  last  Wednesday  evening  at 
the  club  rooms.  The  spread  was  served 
by  the  Presbyterian  Ladies'  Aid. 

After  the  banquet,  those  in  attend- 
ance, about  one  hundred  guests,  repaired 
to  the  auditorium,  where  a  gentleman 
who  is  contemplating  joining  hands  with 
the  local  citizens  in  the  establishment  of 
a  woolen  mill  for  the  manufacture  of 
woolen  blankets  in  this  city,  gave  an 
extended  talk  regarding  the  industry. 

N.  F.  Whelan,  head  of  the  publicity 
and  industrial  department  of  the  Wis- 
consin-Minnesota Light  and  Power  com- 
pany, addressed  the  gathering  and  said 
that,  unbeknown  to  the  gentleman  de- 
siring to  locate  a  woolen  mill  in  Rice 
Lake,  his  company  had  made  a  thorough 
investigation  as  to  the  character,  ability, 
and  competence  of  said  gentleman,  and 
the  reports  were  so  flattering  that  his 
company  is  willing  to  aid  in  securing 
$75,000  outside  money  to  put  with  the 
$20,000  that  will  have  to  be  raised  lo- 
cally to  insure  the  establishment  of  this 
enterprise.  Woolen-  mills  as  an  enter- 
prise were  also  investigated  and  found 
to  be  good  money-makers  as  an  indus- 
trial  investment. 

For  various  reasons  the  Commercial 
Club  and  the  press  of  the  city  are  with- 
holding the  name  of  the  gentleman  de- 
sirous of  locating  here.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  he  is  a  man  who  has  grown 
up  in  this  neighborhood  and  is  at  pres- 
ent superintendent  of  one  of  the  large- 
est  and  most  flourishing  woolen  mills  in 
the    Northwest. 


The  revision  of  the  story  preserves  the  news  vaiues 
and  achieves  the  proper  emphasis : 


At  the  Commercial  Club  banquet  held 
last  Wednesday  evening  in  the  club 
rooms,  N.  F.  Whelan,  head  of  the  pub- 
licity and  industrial  department  of  the 


LOCAL  NEWS 


St 


Wisconsin-Minnesota  Light  and  Power 
company,  offered  to  secure  $75,000  to 
add  to  the  $20,000  to  be  raised  locally 
to  insure  the  establishment  of  a  woolen 
mill  in  Rice  Lake. 

Mr.  Whelan  stated  that  his  company 
had  investigated  the  character  and 
standing  of  the  man  who  wishes  to  es- 
tablish a  woolen  mill  here,  and  that 
the  reports  were  very  flattering.  The 
same  investigation  revealed  the  fact  that 
woolen  mills  are  good  industrial  invest- 
ments. 

For  various  reasons  the  name  of  the 
promoter  is  withheld  at  this  time.  It 
is  enough  to  state  that  he  grew  up  in 
this  neighborhood  and,  at  present,  is 
superintendent  of  one  of  the  largest  and 
most  flourishing  woolen  mills  of  the 
Northwest. 

There  were  100  covers  laid  at  the  ban- 
quet, which  was  served  by  the  Ladies' 
Aid  Society  of  the  Presbyterian  church. 


The  following  story  is  also  very  badly  organized. 
The  lead  is  such  as  would  make  the  hurried  reader 
think  that  the  story  was  merely  a  piece  of  "time  copy'' 
put  in  for  filler.  The  local  end,  the  only  news  part  of 
the  story,  is  left  until  the  last  where  it  has  little  or  no 
emphasis.  The  sentences  in  the  original  and  in  the  re- 
vision are  numbered  so  the  reader  can  readily  see  how 
the  matter  was  rearranged. 


*  Grist  mills  throughout  the  country 
are  busy  again,  after  being  abandoned 
for  many  years,  and  in  some  places  feed 
mills  are  going  into  the  flour  milling 
business  and  attracting  many  customers. 

'The  high  price  of  flour  is  causing 
the  revival  of  activity.  ^  Rather  than 
pay  the  present  price  for  the  Minneapo- 
lis product,  farmers  are  taking  their 
wheat  to  mill  and  hiring  it  ground. 


52  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

*  An  example  of  the  old  industry  made 
new  is  the  feed  mill  at  Blanchardville 
which  has  lately  installed  apparatus  for 
making  flour.  °  Illinois  Central  freight 
officials  are  enthusiastic  over  the  busi- 
ness which  they  are  getting  out  of  it, 
as  the  shipments  made  by  farmers  to  this 
mill  are  very  heavy. 

The  revision  places  the  emphasis  where  it  should 
properly  come  and  injects  local  interest  into  the  lead. 

^The  high  price  of  flour  has  brought 
an  old  Blanchardville  industry  into  op- 
eration again. 

^andsjj^g  old  feed  mill  has  installed 
apparatus  for  making  flour,  and  the 
farmers,  rather  than  pay  Minneapolis 
prices,  are  taking  their  wheat  to  the  mill 
to  be  ground. 

'^Illinois  Central  freight  officials  say 
that  wheat  and  flour  shipments  are  heavy 
over  their  line,  and  they  are  well  pleased 
at  the  increase  of   freight  business. 

^  Many  abandoned  grist  mills  through- 
out the  country  are  working  again,  and 
feed  mills  are  adding  flour-making 
equipment  to  supply  the  demand  for 
cheaper  flour. 

2.     Style 

Style  in  News  Stories. — The  three  cardinal  prin- 
ciples of  a  good  newspaper  style  are  clearness,  brevity, 
and  incisiveness.  If  necessary,  everything  else  must 
be  sacrificed  to  clearness.  Charm  may  have  to  be  dis- 
regarded; unimportant  detail,  even  though  pleasing, 
may  have  to  be  banned.  The  public  must  be  told  clear- 
ly and  concisely  what  the  writer  has  to  say.  **An  hon- 
est tale  speeds  best  being  plainly  told,''  might  well  be 
taken  for  a  motto  by  news  writers.     Such  clear-cut 


LOCAL  NEWS  53 

writing,  such  condensation  and  terseness,  are  not  easy 
for  the  beginner  to  master.  Most  people  are  incHned 
to  write  as  they  think;  and  most  of  us  are,  by  nature, 
discursive  thinkers.  The  news  writer,  then,  must 
force  himself  to  think  consecutively  and  logically,  and 
must  check  sternly  any  impulse  toward  wandering 
speculation.  His  writing  must  follow  his  thought  and 
become  direct,  simple,  incisive.  He  must  learn  that 
*'the  way  to  begin  is  to  begin."  If  he  really  has  some- 
thing to  say,  he  should  begin  saying  it  with  the  very 
first  sentence.  The  country  news  story  should  move 
forward  as  steadily  as  the  story  in  the  metropolitan 
paper. 

Variety  in  Sentences. — Since  news  writing  has  for 
its  purpose  the  setting  forth  of  facts  in  such  a  way  as 
will  make  them  most  easily  understood,  the  sentence 
construction  must  be  evident  at  first  glance.  There 
should  be  perfectly  definite  statements  set  forth  in  a 
style  in  which  the  grammatical  construction  is  not 
complicated  or  obscure.  The  aim  of  the  news  writer 
is  to  get  people  to  read  his  offerings  and  to  under- 
stand them.  It  is  plainly  his  duty,  then,  to  see  that 
what  he  writes  is  stated  in  simple,  clear,  English  sen- 
tences. 

Sentences  may  be  classified  as  to  length  as  (i) 
short;  (2)  medium;  and  (3)  long.  The  single  short 
sentence  of  15  words  or  less  is  useful,  especially  in  the 
lead,  as  (a)  a  topic  sentence,  (b)  the  conclusion,  (c) 
a  transition  sentence,  or  (d)  a  means  to  secure  empha- 
sis. The  use  of  short  sentences  in  series  is  a  good 
device  to  secure  (a)  rapidity  of  movement,  (b)  an  at- 


54 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


mosphere  of  excitement  and  suspense,  or  (c)  abrupt- 
ness. The  medium  sentence  of  15  to  30  words  is  the 
most  common  working  tool  of  the  news  writer  and  is 
especially  valuable  in  giving  clearness  to  the  written 
style.  The  long  sentence  of  more  than  30  words  is 
used  (a)  to  group  minor  details,  (b)  to  secure  climax, 
and  (c)  to  achieve  a  rhythmical  effect. 

The  long,  sentence  should  be  used  carefully,  how- 
ever, for  there  is  a  likelihood  that  the  grammatical 
construction  will  not  be  obvious.  The  following  ex- 
ample shows  how  a  long,  involved  sentence  may  con- 
fuse the  reader  and  how  awkwardly  it  reads.  There 
is  no  reason  why  the  editor  should  try  to  tell  all  the 
facts  without  stopping  to  take  breath. 

John  Bolton,  superintendent  of  the 
Waukon  Iron  and  Steel  Manufacturing 
company  and  the  local  plant  formerly 
known  as  the  Boiler  Works,  has  re- 
turned to  the  city  to  spend  three  weeks 
at  the  west  side  property  which  he  left 
about  five  weeks  ago  when  he  went  to 
Waukon,  and  would  have  returned 
sooner,  but  was  compelled  to  remain  in 
Waukon  on  account  of  Mrs.  Bolton,  who 
had  undergone  an  operation. 

The  story  could  have  been  much  easier  to  write  and 
very  much  easier  to  read  if  it  had  been  cut  up  as  fol- 
lows: 

John  Bolton,  superintendent  of  the 
Waukon  Iron  and  Steel  Manufacturing 
company  and  of  the  local  plant  formerly 
known  as  the  Boiler  Works,  has  re- 
turned to  the  city  to  spend  three  weeks 
at  the  west  side  property.  He  went  to 
Waukon  five  weeks  ago,  intending  to 
return  sooner,  but  was  delayed  by  the 
illness  of  Mrs.  Bolton. 


LOCAL  NEWS  55 

Sentences  may  also  be  classified  as  to  the  grammati- 
cal construction,  as  (i)  simple,  (2)  complex,  and  (3) 
compound.  In  general,  the  complex  and  the  compound 
sentences  are  used  to  give  smoothness  to  the  style  and 
to  avoid  the  monotonous  effect  of  a  succession  of  short 
simple  sentences. 

The  following  arrangements  show  the  way  in  which 
variety  may  be  secured  by  the  use  of  various  forms  of 
grammatical  construction. 


Simple : 


John  Williams  was  in  town  yesterday 
calling  on  old  friends.  He  is  living  on 
the  Wilbur  farm  near  Waucoma. 


Complex:  I     John  Williams,  who  is  living  on  the 

Wilbur    farm    near    Waucoma,    was    in 
I  town  yesterday  calling  on  old  friends. 


Compound : 


John  Williams  came  down  from  his 
home  on  the  Wilbur  farm  near  Wau- 
coma yesterday  and  his  old  friends 
v/ere  glad  to  see  him. 


Variety  in  the  Choice  of  Words.— After  the  re- 
porter has  learned  to  write  his  stories  so  that  the  facts 
are  easily  seized,  the  next  step  is  to  inject  interest  and 
variety  into  the  narrative.  A  piece  of  writing  may  be 
mechanically  perfect  and  logically  correct  and  yet  make 
very  poor  reading.  The  quality  of  brightness  and 
the  avoidance  of  threadbare  ways  of  saying  things  are 
valuable  to  a  news  story.  This  can  best  be  attained 
by  care  in  the  use  of  words.  Try  to  express  an  old 
thought  in  new  language.  There  is  a  marked  tendency 
among  reporters,  city  and  country  alike,  to  use  old 
forms  of  expression;  they  follow  the  line  of  least  re- 


56  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

sistance.  Use  bright,  colorful  words,  and  use  them 
exactly.  The  connotation  of  words — the  things  they 
suggest  as  well  as  their  direct  meanings — should  be 
an  especial  hobby  with  every  news  writer  who  hopes 
to  emerge  from  the  crowd.  Cultivate  the  habit  of 
looking  at  your  material  from  every  possible  angle, 
and  then  play  up  the  feature  in  the  most  attractive 
manner  possible.  Stick  to  the  use  of  concrete  terms; 
if  you  have  the  facts,  you  can  best  serve  the  reading 
public  by  presenting  them  in  a  straightforward  man- 
ner. Ignorance  always  hides  behind  general  terms. 
Say  sun,  not  "orb  of  day";  home,  not  "domicile''; 
feet,  not  "pedal  extremities'' ;  hair  or  beard,  not  "hir- 
sute growth."  If  you  want  a  clear,  straightforward, 
pleasing  style,  use  simple  words  which  exactly  ex- 
press your  meaning. 

*Tine  Writing/'— The  habit  of  elaborate  and  in- 
flated diction  sometimes  breaks  into  the  country  news- 
paper. This  sort  of  writing  is  worse  than  useless. 
Such  orgies  of  adjectives  have  no  place  in  print  of 
any  sort,  and  especially  should  they  be  excluded  from 
newspaper  style  which  aims  at  definiteness  and  clear- 
ness. Careful  attention  to  word  values  is  one  of  the 
hall-marks  of  a  good  newspaper  style  just  as  it  is  of  a 
good  literary  style.  But  it  is  even  more  essential  to 
terse,  concise  newspaper  English  than  to  the  more  lei- 
surely English  of  literary  compositions.  In  observing 
words,  the  young  writer  will  soon  find  that  there  are 
many  stereotyped  expressions  encountered  again  and 
again  in  the  papers.  These  wornout,  hackneyed  words 
and  phrases  should  studiously  be  avoided;  whatever 


LOCAL  NEWS 


57 


descriptive  merit  they  may  once  have  had  was  long 
ago  worn  threadbare.  Learn  new  words  to  express 
your  ideas.  Study  a  good  dictionary  and  be  sure  that 
the  words  you  use  exactly  express  your  meaning.  The 
constant  use  of  trite  expressions  gives  a  tone  of  insin- 
cerity to  a  story. 

Space  is  lacking  in  the  present,  discussion  to  present 
more  than  a  few  of  the  most  commonly  used  expres- 
sions. These  will  suggest  others,  and  it  would  be  a 
good  plan  for  each  news  writer  to  make  out  a  list  of 
trite  expressions  which  he  finds  in  his  own  work. 


favor  with  a  selection 

last  but  not  least 

wended  their  way 

doomed  to  disappointment 

sought  his  downy  couch 

in  evidence 

someone  has  said 

as  luck  would  have  it 

do  ample  justice  to  a  meal 

beautiful  and  accomplished 

proud  parents 

sadder  but  wiser 

raven  tresses 

venerable  hairs 

wee  small  hours 

almighty  dollar 

dainty  refreshments 

gone  to  his  reward 

passed  away  . 

called  home 

prattling  babe 

this  part  of  the  universe 

few  well-chosen  words 

king  of  beasts 

gone  but  not  forgotten 


reigned  supreme 

each  and  every 

long- felt  want 

the  conventional  black 

hymeneal  altar 

all  in  all 

voyage  of  life 

render  a  solo 

fair  maidens 

proud  possessor 

method  in  his  madness 

devouring  element 

snowy  locks 

glowing  account 

order  out  of  chaos 

heart  and  hand 

for  better  or  for  worse 

a  fine. time  was  had  by  all 

sterling  worth 

his  many  friends 

the  beautiful  (for  snow) 

the  light  fantastic 

the  rosy  dawn 

better  half 

nuptial  ceremony 


58  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

The  following  story  clipped  from  a  country  weekly 
shows  how  ridiculous  *'fine  writing"  is: 

Elmer  Krohn  of  this  place  is  now  sail- 
ing the  seven  seas  behind  the  frowning 
guns  of  the  superdreadnaught,  Illinois, 
one  of  Uncle  Sam's  alert  and  formid- 
able watchdogs  of  war. 

It  would  have  been  much  better  for  the  writer  to 
have  put  his  story  plainly : 

Elmer  Krohn  of  this  place  has  been 
assigned  to  duty  on  the  U.  S.  S.  Illinois, 
a  battleship  of  the  superdreadnaught 
class.    He  is  now  on  cruise. 

Paragraphing. — The  typographical  make-up  of  the 
newspaper  demands  that  paragraphs  shall  be  shorter 
than  the  literary  paragraph  to  which  the  young  writer 
has  been  accustomed  in  high  school.  A  column  less 
than  two  and  one-half  inches  wide  will  soon  fill,  and 
if  it  is  set  solidly  with  type  matter  unrelieved  by  white 
space  here  and  there,  it  has  a  forbidding  aspect.  The 
ordinary  news  paragraph  in  the  country  weekly  will 
be  from  50  to  75  words  in  length  and  will  fill  8  to  12 
lines  set  in  brevier  type.  A  close  adherence  to  news- 
paper style  will  help  the  beginner  to  construct  the  right 
kind  of  news  paragraphs.  If  he  writes  concisely  and 
to  the  point,  he  will,  find  that  his  material  breaks 
off  rather  readily  into  paragraphs  of  suitable  length. 
There  must  be  a  perfectly  definite  idea  in  each  para- 
graph, and  paragraph  unity  must  be  observed  more 
carefully  than  in  general  writing.  A  story  should 
never  be  constructed  so  that  it  will  have  the  appearance 


LOCAL  NEWS 


59 


of  being  mechanically  divided  into  paragraphs  to  meet 
the  exigency  of  the  make-up.  The  paragraphing 
should  be  so  perfectly  done  as  not  to  call  attention 
to  itself  in  any  way.  The  best  paragraphing  is  the 
least  obvious.  The  lack  of  paragraph  unity  in  the 
following  paragraph  is  easily  seen : 


Old  friends  and  students  of  Milton 
college  to  the  number  of  about  40  gath- 
ered at  the  Sherman  house,  Chicago, 
Monday  night  for  an  informal  reunion. 
Although  no  program  had  been  ar- 
ranged, the  spontaneous  enthusiasm 
made  the  occasion  a  delightful  one. 
Milton's  brand  of  music  was  in  evidence 
and  much  enjoyed.  Reminiscences  were 
indulged  in,  but  the  general  attitude  of 
the  meeting  was  forward  toward  the 
new  day  on  which  the  school  is  entering. 
Eloquent  tributes  were  paid  by  Dean  E. 
H.  Lewis,  Fred  W.  Bentley,  Esq.,  and 
other  eminent  men  to  Milton's  thorough- 
ness, culture,  .democracy,  and  moral  and 
spiritual  power.  The  world's  positive 
need  of  such  a  school  was  pointed  out. 
Practically  everybody  had  something  to 
say.  The  continuance  of  such  a  yearly 
gathering  was  voted.  The  success  of  the 
initial  meeting  assured  bigger  things  in 
the  future. 


The  whole  story  needs  to  be  rewritten ;  it  is  such  a 
perfect  example  of  bad  arrangement  that  nothing  short 
of  a  complete  reorganization  will  make  it  readable. 
The  following  revision  attempts  to  introduce  unity 
into  the  various  paragraphs : 


About  forty  old  friends  and  students 
of  Milton  college  met  in  the  Sher- 
man house,  Chicago,  Monday  night  for 
an  informal  reunion,  and,  although  no 
program  had  been  arranged,  the  spon- 


6o 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


taneous  enthusiasm  made  the  occasion  a 
delightful  one. 

Music  and  reminiscences  made  the 
time  pass  pleasantly,  but  the  most  im- 
portant phase  of  the  meeting  was  a  con- 
sideration of  the  new  day  on  which  the 
school  is  entering. 

Speeches  were  made  by  Dean  E.  H. 
Lewis.  Fred  W.  Bentley,  and  others 
praising  Milton's  thoroughness,  culture, 
democracy,  and  moral  and  spiritual 
power,  and  pointing  out  the  world's  posi- 
tive need  of  such  a  school.  Practically 
everyone  had  something  to  say. 

The  success  of  the  meeting  assured 
bigger  things  for  the  future,  and  it  was 
voted  to  make  the  reunion  an  annual 
affair. 


Some  Common  Errors. — It  would  be  difficult  to 
catalogue  all  the  errors  in  grammar  that  commonly 
creep  into  the  newspapers  and  render  the  meaning  ob- 
scure. There  are  several,  however,  which  are  so  com- 
mon that  they  must  be  mentioned  here. 

(i)  Lack  of  agreement  between  the  verb  and  its 
subject. 


'The  band''  is  sin- 
gular; "are''  is 
plural. 

''The  team"  is  sin- 
gular ;  "are"  is 
plural. 


The  band  is  making  its  first  trip  out 
of  town  today  and  are  very  much 
pleased  with  having  a  chance  to  play  at 
the  fair. 

The  team  has  already  won  three  games 
and  are  confident  that  they  can  win 
Saturday. 


(2)  "Dangling"  or  indefinite  participial  construc- 
tions that  lack  emphasis  and  are  not  organically  con- 
nected with  the  rest  of  the  sentence. 


LOCAL  NEWS 


6i 


While  W.  Duehn- 
ing  was  cranking 
the  auto  of  the 
Washington  Coun- 
ty Telephone  com- 
pany recently,  the 
motor  backfired ; 
the  crank  struck 
him,  etc. 

The  steering  gear 
was  not  **riding" ; 
neither  did  it 
"thnow  out"  the 
men. 


While  cranking  the  auto  of  the  Wash- 
ington County  Telephone  company  re- 
cently, the  motor  back-fired  hitting  W. 
Duehning  on  the  jaw  breaking  a  tooth 
and  injuring  him  severely  about  the 
mouth. 


Riding  from  the  station  to  the  Union 
house,  the  steering  gear  of  the  car  broke 
and  threw  out  several  traveling  men. 


(3)  Indefinite  antecedents.  Careless  construction  of 
the  sentence  often  leaves  the  reader  in  doubt  as  to  the 
reference  of  pronouns. 


The  fire  was  not 
damaged ;  it  was 
the  building.  Make 
the  sentence  say 
what  it  means. 


The  fire  had  gained  considerable  head- 
way by  the  time  the  fire  department  got 
there,  and  as  a  result,  it  was  pretty 
badly  damaged. 


'Winfield  Scott  of 
Okee  had  a  narrow 
escape  from  death 
last  Friday  when 
attacked  by  a  bull. 
The  animal,  which 
he  was  leading  by 
the  ring,  became 
suddenly  infuriat- 
ed, knocking  him 
down  and  rolling 
him  around  in  the 
mud. 


Winfield  Scott  of  Okee  had  a  nar- 
row escape  from  death  last  Friday  when 
attacked  by  a  bull.  He  was  leading  the 
animal  by  the  ring  when  suddenly  he 
became  infuriated,  knocking  him  down 
and  rolling  him  around  in  the  mud. 


62 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


(4)  Lack  of  coordination  in  structure: 


It  IS  only  three  weeks  since  Mr.  Zas- 
trow  has  been  able  to  attend  to  his  busi- 
ness affairs,  having  been  sick  for  a  long 
time  and  was  a  patient  in  the  local  hos- 
pital. 


The  sentence  at  the 
right  is  clumsy  and 
vague. 

It  is  only  within 
the  last  three 
weeks  that  Mr. 
Zastrow  has  been 
able,  etc.  He  was 
sick  for  a  long 
time,  etc. 

John  Ryerson  is 
moving  back  from 
Colorado  after  a 
stay  of  three 
weeks.  He  did  not 
like  the  country  so 
did  not  buy  land  as 
he  intended. 


(5)    The    use    of    conjunctions    between    relative 
clauses  and  principal  clauses. 


John  Ryerson  is  moving  back  from 
Colorado,  having  been  gone  three  weeks 
and  did  not  like  the  country,  so  did  not 
buy  land  as  he  intended. 


Omit  the  "and." 


Anderson,  who  re- 
lieved Dye  in  the 
ninth  inning, 
pitched  good  ball ; 
but  this  was  of  no 
avail. 


Mr.  Owen  was  elected  attorney-gen- 
eral, and  which  office  he  has  now  re- 
signed. 

Anderson,  who  relieved  Dye  in  the 
ninth  inning,  pitched  good  "ball,  but 
which  was  of  no  avail. 


(6)  '^Splitting''  the  infinitive  with  an  adverb.    Such 
usage  tends  to  nullify  both  the  verb  and  the  adverb. 

truth 


To   tell   the 
bluntly,  etc. 


To  bluntly  tell  the  truth  Webster  is 
behind  the  other  towns  of  the  county  in 
the  good  roads  movement 


LOCAL  NEWS 


63 


Tamely  to  submit, 
etc. 


To  tamely  submit  to  open  violation  of  1 
the  law  is   something  that  our  citizens 
will  not  do. 


(7)  A  wide  separation  of  modifiers  from  the  words 
they  modify,  resulting  in  obscurity. 

He  brought  a  drink  to  his  wife  in  a 
tin  cup. 


Johnny  Dern  made  the  last  touch- 
down just  as  the  whistle  blew  and  will 
take  advantage  of  Zorn  brothers'  offer 
and  will  get  a  pair  of  pants  in  common 
with  Smith  and  Graf. 


He  brought  a  drink 
in  a  tin  cup,  etc. 

This  is  vague. 
Johnny  will  get  a 
pair  of  trousers  all 
to  himself.  Make 
it  read  .  .  .  and,  in 
common  with 
Smith  and  Graf, 
will  get,  etc. 


(8)  "Dangling''  elliptical  clauses.    This  is  an  error 
easy  to  fall  into  when  a  clause  is  not  stated  in  full. 


When  four  years  old  his  father  died. 


Do   not   use   the   cream   unless   thor- 
oughly  whipped. 


When  he  was  four 
years  old,  his 
father  died. 

Do  not  use  the 
cream  unless  it 
is  thoroughly 
whipped. 


IV.     News  Policy 

Accuracy. — The  keystone  of  all  news  policy  should 
be  accuracy.  If  the  paper  is  to  be  of  any  value  to  the 
community  as  an  organ  of  public  opinion  and  lever  for 
public  uplift,  it  must  first  establish  a  reputation  for 
truth  in  all  things.    In  a  country  community,  especial- 


64  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

ly,  where  it  is  easy  to  test  all  news  by  its  sources,  a 
paper  that  is  careless  of  details  of  fact  cannot  long 
hope  to  please  the  people.  Printing  the  news  is  the  pri- 
mary function  of  the  country  paper,  and  presenting 
it  accurately  is  the  first  great  duty  of  the  editor.  Upon 
this  foundation  all  the  superstructure  of  the  paper's 
service  and  power  rests.  No  news  item  is  so  insignifi- 
cant as  to  excuse  carelessness  in  getting  and  present- 
ing the  facts. 

Public  opinion  is  made  up  of  the  cumulative  force 
of  individual  opinion;  and  in  the  case  of  the  country 
paper,  each  man's  opinion  of  it  is  formed  chiefly  upon 
the  degree  of  truth  and  care  that  the  paper  exercises 
in  handling  news  about  him.  If  his  name  is  J.  E. 
Brown,  he  does  not  like  to  see  it  printed  J.  C.  Brown. 
If  he  has  sold  a  fine  Guernsey  cow,  he  will  feel  a  sense 
of  injury  if  the  editor  states  that  the  cow  was  a  Jer- 
sey. He  will  feel,  and  rightly  too,  that  if  the  news 
about  him  was  worth  printing  at  all,  it  was  worth 
making  an  effort  to  get  the  facts.  The  editor  who  is 
careless  in  small  things  is  taking  a  Igng  chance,  be- 
cause it  is  human  nature  for  people  who  have  been 
treated  carelessly  in  news  items  to  believe  that  all  news 
is  handled  with  equal  inaccuracy.  And  it  is  human  na- 
ture, too,  to  remember  mistakes,  even  though  they 
are  few,  and  to  forget  the  many  times  wheh  the  edi- 
tor had  the  facts  correct.  The  best  motto  the  editor 
can  have  for  gathering  and  presenting  news  is  AC- 
^CURACY  FIRST  AND  ACCURACY  ALWAYS. 

Fairness  in  Handling  the  News. — Too  often  the 
country  editor  is  unintentionally  unfair  in  handling  the 


LOCAL  NEWS  65 

news  because  he  does  not  cultivate  all  the  sources  of 
news  supply.  These  sources  should  be  made  as  vari- 
ous as  possible  in  order  that  all  the  news  may  be  ob- 
tained. There  have  been  many  small  heart-burnings 
because  Mary  Jones's  party  was  not  reported  so  care- 
fully as  was  Alice  Brown's  the  week  before.  Prob- 
ably the  reason  was  that  the  editor  knew  nothing  about 
the  party  at  Jones's.  It  may  have  been  given  for  a 
social  set  different  from  the  one  in  which  he  moved, 
and  his  reporter  may  not  have  learned  of  the  affair 
until  it  was  too  late  to  get  a  good  story.  It  was  likely 
not  the  editor's  intention  to  be  unfair;  but  to  Miss 
Jones  and  her  friends  the  damning  fact  of  poor  re- 
porting was  an  open  sign  of  unfairness. 

The  reporter  should  get  the  news  of  all  the  little 
social  cliques  and  do  straight  reporting  on  them.  Play- 
ing up  some  social  affairs  simply  because  of  the  promi- 
nence of  the  people  involved  is  a  common  thing  and 
probably  in  accord  with  the  best  news  principles;  but 
too  much  of  this  sort  of  thing  may  not  be  wise.  At 
any  rate,  the  editor  should  not  leave  out  the  social  di- 
versions of  those  who  move  in  a  circle  less  brilliant 
than  the  one  presided  over  by  the  wife  of  the  judge  or 
of  the  congressman.  It  is  best  to  be  democratic.  It  is 
American  and  it  pays. 

Impartiality. — One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  in 
small-town  journalism  is  to  present  the  news  without 
^'coloring"  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  local  column 
of  the  country  weekly  is  usually  full  of  "color."  This 
would  not  and  could  not  be  tolerated  in  city  papers. 
These  large  papers,  which  handle  their  news  imperson- 


66 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


ally,  make  it  a  policy  that  facts  shall  be  reported  but 
that  no  expression  of  opinion  shall  be  allowed  in  the 
news  columns.  "Coloring''  by  personal  opinion  is  held 
to  be  a  very  bad  thing  for  the  city  paper;  and  rightly 
so.  But  in  the  country  paper  ''color"  is  common  and 
most  of  it  is  harmless.  Such  a  story  as  the  following 
is  plainly  colored  by  the  editor's  opinion : 

Heretofore  the  Argus  has  failed  to 
record  the  fact  that  at  the  late  session 
of  the  Vernon  county  board  of  super- 
visors, the  worth  and  integrity  of  an- 
other of  the  "west  end"  boys  was  recog- 
nized when  Cashier  H.  A.  Tulloch  of 
the  Genoa  state  bank  was  named  as  one 
of  the  board  of  trustees  for  the  Vernon 
county  asylum  for  the  insane,  to  suc- 
ceed Col.  C.  M.  Butt. 

For  a  long  term  of  years  Col.  Butt 
served  in  the  capacity  named  with  credi- 
table efficiency  and  honor,  but  his  ad- 
vanced age  necessitated  his  retirement. 
No  better  man  than  Harry  Tulloch 
could  have  been  selected  as  his  succes- 


If  such  a  piece  of  reporting  is  prompted  simply  by 
universally  friendly  sentiment,  it  is  perfectly  in  place 
in  the  country  paper.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
plainly  a  piece  of  press-agent  copy,  the  public  in  the 
country  will  know  it  as  soon  as  it  appears.  Of  course, 
straight  reporting  on  the  story  would  have  brought  out 
simply  the  fact  that  Col.  C.  M.  Butt,  who  had  retired 
because  of  advanced  age  from  the  board  of  trustees 
of  the  Vernon  county  asylum  for  the  insane,  had  been 
#^ucceeded  by  H.  A.  Tulloch,  cashier  of  the  Genoa  state 
bank.  But  readers  in  general  would  feel  that  such 
an  item  for  a  country  paper  was  pretty  dead  report- 


LOCAL  NEWS  67 

ing;  and  they  would  be  right.  In  the  country,  people 
know  each  other.  Therefore,  in  the  country  the  local 
news  story  must  be  personal  and,  in  the  main,  friend- 
ly ;  not  impersonally  correct. 

Such  reporting  as  the  above  item,  however,  calls  for 
a  very  careful  and  delicate  balance.  It  must  always 
be  apparent  that  the  editor  means  to  be  impartial.  If 
the  impression  gets  about  that  he  is  partisan,  his  paper 
will  suffer  a  loss  of  prestige.  Legitimate  reporting 
need  not  be  restricted  to  a  colorless  statement  of  fact. 
It  can  express  opinions  such  as  the  above  if  the  edi- 
tor is  tactful,  careful,  and  fair.  The  ideal  state  in 
journalism,  city  and  country  alike,  is  absolutely  fair 
reporting  ''unawed  by  influence  and  unbribed  by  gain." 
By  such  reporting  public  confidence  in  the  press  could 
be  built  up  to  such  an  extent  that  the  newspaper  would 
be  the  greatest  possible  force  in  directing  public  opin- 
ion. It  will  be  many  years,  perhaps,  before  we  shall 
have  absolutely  impartial  presentation  of  the  news,  but 
it  is  something  every  editor  and  reporter  ought  to  be 
thinking  about — and  practicing,  too,  so  far  as  it  is  hu- 
manly possible. 

Publishing  All  the  News. — On  this  vexing  ques- 
tion of  newspaper  policy  there  is  a  wide  divergence 
of  opinion  among  editors.  The  late  Charles  A.  Dana 
is  said  to  have  declared  that  he  would  print  anything 
that  Providence  allowed  to  happen,  and,  indeed,  under 
Dana  the  New  York  Sun  allowed  wide  freedom  of  ex- 
pression. The  Nezv  York  Times  advertises  "All  the 
News  That's  Fit  to  Print.''  The  Chicago  Herald  re- 
cently stated  its  position  in  an  editorial: 


68 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


The  Herald  will  continue  to  print  the 
news  without  improper  emphasis,  either 
reportorially  or  editorially,  of  its  sig- 
nificance. It  will  do  so  with  the  full 
conviction  that  in  no  way  can  a  worthy 
cause  be  so  effectively  aided  or  a  bad 
system  so  thoroughly  exposed  and  dis- 
credited. 


James  Keeley,  editor  of  the  Chicago  Herald,  be- 
lieves that  suppression  of  news  is  worse  than  printing 
a  piece  of  news  that  ought  not  to  have  been  written. 
"By  improper  suppression,"  says  Mr.  Keeley,  **a  news- 
paper sells  its  soul  and  betrays  its  readers.  To  my 
mind  it  is  the  high  treason  of  journalism." 

Commenting  on  pitiless  and  irrational  publicity,  the 
Deseret  Evening  News  (Salt  Lake  City)  takes  up  a 
case  in  which  one  of  its  competitors  published  the  facts 
concerning  the  arrest  of  a  man  charged  with  a  heinous 
ofifense  and  mentioned  the  fact  that  he  had  a  son  in 
town  attending  the  University  of  Utah.  Allowing 
something  for  the  venom  which  this  paper  feels  for 
its  rivals  in  the  field,  there  is  still  much  of  truth  in 
the  editorial,  which  follows  in  part: 


Seldom  if  ever  in  local  journalism  has 
there  been  such  a  display  as  this  of 
utter  heartlessness  on  the  part  of  a 
newspaper  with  any  claim  to  respecta- 
bility or  honor.  Even  if  there  were  no 
good  reason  under  the  circumstances  for 
suppressing  the  fact  of  the  arrest,  there 
was  surely  every  reason  in  decency  and 
common  humanity  for  omitting  to  drag 
the  innocent  boy  at  school  into  it.  The 
frantic  appeal  of  a  father — even  if  him- 
self a  criminal — that  the  taint  be  not 
placed  on  his  son  might  have  moved  a 
barbarian.  It  met  with  no  more  chari- 
table response  than  the  brutal  publica- 


LOCAL  NEWS  69 


tion  of  the  request  itself  merely  to  per- 
mit a  prurient  and  sensational  reporter 
to  score  a  point. 


The  question  of  any  suppression  of  the  news  is  a 
grave  one  for  the  country  editor.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  publicity  has  great  corrective  potency.  ''The 
wages  of  sin  is  publicity,"  says  Ed  Howe.  If  John 
Brown  has  been  fined  for  drunkenness,  and  cares  at  all 
for  public  opinion,  a  news  item  concerning  the  affair 
will  tend  to  prevent  a  recurrence.  On  the  other  hand, 
such  publicity  will  undoubtedly  distress  Mrs.  Brown, 
who  already  has  trouble  enough.  What  to  do  ?  Prob- 
ably the  only  just  way  of  deciding  is  to  weigh  the 
situation  and  cast  the  vote  for  the  greatest  good  to  the 
greatest  number.  Many  times  an  editor  will  be  asked 
to  ''keep  it  out  of  the  paper."  In  a  small  community 
where  the  people  know  each  other  it  is  hard  to  refuse. 
Yet  it  is  more  than  cowardly  always  to  comply.  The 
editor  must  steer  a  clear  course  here  and  question  his 
own  motives  every  time.  If  he  finds  that  his  compli- 
ance comes  only  from  fear  or  expediency,  he  should 
manfully  refuse  to  prostitute  his  columns.  They  are 
for  the  publication  of  truth ;  let  them  fulfill  their  func- 
tion. In  a  certain  sense  the  editor  is  under  contract  to 
furnish  the  news.  Not  merely  the  pleasant  news — but 
the  news.  If  his  paper  is  to  show  a  cross-section  of 
the  life  of  the  community  or  the  county,  it  must  print 
pretty  much  all  the  news.  The  question  is  a  difficult 
one  and  no  editor  should  decide  hurriedly  or  senti- 
mentally upon  it.     Neither  can  it  be  settled  by  gener- 


70  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

alizations.     Every  case  should  be  settled  individually 
upon  its  merits. 

Tone. — The  tone  of  the  personal-mention  column 
should  be  unexceptionable.  There  was  a  time  when  it 
was  a  common  practice  to  refer  to  many  people  of  the 
town  with  levity — just  as  it  was  common  to  refer  to 
a  competitor  with  scorn  and  abuse.  Neither  is  toler- 
ated now.  *'01d  Bill  Brown''  may  be  having  his  barn 
reshingled  but  the  local  reads  ''William  Brown."  The 
news  is  handled  with  more  dignity  than  formerly  and 
the  rules  of  polite  society  are  pretty  well  observed  in 
country  newspaper  offices.  The  editor  who  is  tempted 
now  and  then  to  be  familiar  or  funny  at  someone's  ex- 
pense will  do  well  to  reflect  that  he  is  paid  to  publish 
the  news,  and  that  probably  he  would  better  remain 
within  his  demonstrated  sphere  of  usefulness.  His 
columns  ought  to  be  bright,  of  course,  but  editorial 
sarcasm,  even  when  meant  in  a  friendly  way,  is  not 
the  best  means  by  which  to  secure  brightness  and  va- 
riety; and  certainly  it  is  not  a  good  means  of  making 
and  holding  friends.  The  country  public  because  of 
its  small  size  and  homogeneity  is  a  peculiarly  sensitive 
pubHc.  The  editor  need  not  take  himself  too  seriously. 
But  it  is  well  to  remember  that  a  thing  harmless  and 
even  appropriate  in  intimate  conversation  may  be  the 
very  opposite  if  printed  in  the  paper. 


Suggestions 


Be  accurate. 
Be  fair. 


LOCAL  NEWS  ^i 

Don't  "color  news"  to  gain  interest. 

Cover  the  whole  local  field. 

Never  go  to  press  without  ''tapping*'  every  news 
source. 

Get  all  the  meat  from  every  story. 

Don't  pad  your  stories. 

Be  simple  and  direct;  avoid  "fine  writing." 

Put  your  greatest  emphasis  on  local  news. 

Keep  some  feature  stories  on  hand.  They  are  good 
if  well  done. 

Leave  nothing  to  chance  when  gathering  news. 

Keep  a  "future''  book  and  a  pocket  notebook. 

If  you  have  a  competitor,  read  his  paper  carefully. 

Strive  constantly  to  improve  your  written  style. 

Don't  be  flippant  in  the  tone  of  your  writing. 

Don't  use  the  shears  and  paste  pot  too  much. 

Train  your  assistants  in  your  way  of  doing  things. 

Get  a  good  dictionary  and  use  it. 

Try  to  make  your  copy  bright  and  interesting. 

Play  up  the  "feature"  in  every  story. 

Make  your  writing  clear,  concise,  and  forceful. 


CHAPTER  III 
COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE 

The  Widening  Social  Field. — The  social  field  used 
to  be  the  village  and  the  immediate  community;  now 
it  is  expanding  and,  in  many  cases,  covers  pretty  much 
all  the  county.  The  term  '^community''  has  become 
more  inclusive  in  the  past  ten  years.  It  no  longer 
means  simply  the  village  or  town,  but  has  broadened  to 
take  in  the  country  adjacent  to  the  town  and  tributary 
to  it.  The  interests  of  the  country  and  the  town  have 
become  more  nearly  one;  each  is  dependent  upon  the 
other. 

In  most  parts  of  the  country  the  good  roads  move- 
ment and  the  extension  of  trolley  systems,  together 
with  the  almost  universal  use  of  the  motor  car,  have 
done  much  to  destroy  the  semi-isolation  of  the  farmer 
and  small-town  resident.  County  correspondence  has 
been  revolutionized  by  the  motor  car.  More  units  in 
each  center  touch  more  units  in  other  centers.  This 
makes  county  correspondence  increasingly  more  in- 
teresting to  larger  groups  of  people.  Just  as  people  are 
interested  in  reading  what  their  neighbors  are  doing, 
'  they  are  interested  in  knowing  what  their  friends  and 
acquaintances  in  other  towns  are  about,  and  what  is 
going  on  in  neighboring  towns  and  communities  in  the 

72 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  73 

way  of  modern  improvements  and  evidences  of  civic 
spirit.  If  Smith ville  is  going  to  have  electric  lights, 
Brownstown  wants  to  know  about  it.  Man's  horizon 
is  broadening  and  he  wishes  to  keep  abreast  of  civic 
and  educational  improvement  in  all  the  towns  about 
him.  Of  the  improvements  in  cities  and  towns  remote 
he  may  read  in  the  daily  paper ;  these  touch  him  only 
indirectly.  What  is  happening  close  at  home  is  the 
thing  that  is  vital  to  him. 

It  is  true  that  the  editor  of  the  local  paper  gets  other 
newspapers  in  exchange  and  will  likely  clip  from  them 
all  the  stories  that  would  be  of  interest  to  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  lives.  But  most  of  us  want  the 
field  before  us  so  that  we  may  make  the  choice  for 
ourselves.  If  we  go  to  a  hotel,  we  wish  to  order 
our  own  meal  from  the  menu;  it  is  not  flattering  to 
our  intelligence  to  assume  that  we  cannot  do  it.  Sim- 
ilarly, clipped  articles  from  other  country  papers  never 
have  quite  the  same  flavor  as  the  first-hand  articles 
that  we  find  for  ourselves  in  the  county  correspond- 
ence. We  always  have  the  feeling  that  something  we 
might  have  found  interesting  has  been  omitted  from 
the  editor's  clipped  stories;  and  there  probably  has, 
for  no  editor  is  able  to  say  in  advance  just  what  will  be 
of  interest  to  any  particular  reader.  Of  course,  if  a 
big  story  ''breaks"  in  any  of  the  communities,  the  edi- 
tor will  play  it  up  and  not  confine  it  to  the  columns 
which  he  sets  aside  for  the  correspondence.  But  these 
big  stories  would  likely  come  in  even  if  there  were 
no  correspondent  in  the  community. 

The  chief  pulling  power  of  the  correspondence  col- 


74  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

umns  is  that  they  tell  about  ''just  folks,"  and  one  who 
has  never  lived  in  a  rural  community  can  have  little 
idea  of  the  value  of  such  items.  It  is  astonishing  how 
many  names  we  find  that  are  familiar  to  us  in  a  well- 
written  correspondence  column.  It  is  another  local 
news  page  and  supplements  the  purely  local  news  of 
the  town  in  which  it  is  published. 

Correspondence  and  Circulation. — From  the 
point  of  view  of  the  business-like  editor,  there  are 
very  few  departments  of  the  paper  which  will  pay  so 
well  as  the  correspondence  columns.  As  a  circulation- 
getter  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  community  the  cor- 
respondence page  has  no  equal.  Added  circulation 
means  greater  income,  greater  number  of  inches  of 
advertising,  and  greater  prestige  throughout  the  sec- 
tion of  the  state  where  the  paper  is  published.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  the  best  country  paper,  the  one  with 
the  greatest  circulation  and  the  most  advertising,  is 
inevitably  the  one  which  has  the  best  department  of 
county  correspondence.  It  is  the  sine  qua  non  of  the 
county  paper  as  distinguished  from  the  purely  local 
country  paper. 

Local  news  from  every  town  and  community  in  the 
county  generally  means  subscribers  from  all  these 
places.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the  pulling  power  of 
local  news,  only  on  a  larger  scale,  and  for  considerably 
less  cash  outlay  per  column.  The  editor  who  neglects 
correspondence  from  surrounding  communities  defi- 
nitely shuts  ofif  revenue  and  resigns  himself  to  the 
editorship  of  a  merely  local  paper.  His  possibilities 
are  limited  by  his  negligence  and  sloth. 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  75 

Claude  D.  McKey  of  the  Lebanon  (Indiana) 
Pioneer  says : 

Almost  wholly  to  the  good  work  of 
a  corps  of  75  country  correspondents 
and  to  a  thorough  and  systematic  cul- 
tivation of  the  local  field  does  the 
Pioneer  owe  its  success  in  competing 
with  two  above-the-average  home  dai- 
lies and  with  the  Indianapolis  newspa- 
pers. ...  In  Boone  county  of  which  Le- 
banon is  the  county  seat,  we  have  about 
30,000  people.  The  policy  of  the 
Pioneer  is  to  say  something  about  as 
many  of  these  people  as  possible  in 
every  issue.  The  first  of  April  we  had 
on  our  list  75  county  correspondents 
representing  as  many  different  neighbor- 
hoods, villages  and  towns,  and  every 
week  we  receive  from  forty-five  to  fifty 
,  reports. 

Similarly,  George  W.  Wagenseller,  editor  of  the 
Middleburgh  (Pennsylvania)  Post  which  is  often  re- 
ferred to  as  the  most  successful  country  weekly  in 
America,  said  before  the  National  Editorial  associa- 
tion in  19 16: 

The  strongest  point  I  can  make  in 
producing  a  newspaper  that  the  people 
want  is  to  publish  what  we  call  country 
correspondence  or  letters  from  every 
locality  where  the  Post  circulates.  Peo- 
ple like  to  see  their  names  in  print.  We 
publish  from  30  to  50  letters  every  week 
and  in  that  way  mention  a  great  many 
names  in  the  course  of  a  year.  We  en- 
courage our  readers  to  send  us  accounts 
of  parties  and  to  mention  the  names 
of  all  the  guests.  Our  slogan  is  names, 
names — the  more  names  the  better. 

Such  testimony  bears  the  weight  of  authority,  for 
Mr.  Wagenseller  has  built  up  a  weekly  paper  with  a 


76  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

circulation  of  more  than  6,000,  and  this,  too,  in  a  town 
of  less  than  600  population,  and  in  a  county  with  less 
than  17,000  population.  Such  success  is  unusual  and 
it  has  been  built  largely  upon  county  correspondence. 
The  Boston  Globe,  to  cite  a  city  paper,  for  years  en- 
joyed a  great  rural  and  suburban  circulation  because 
it  aimed  to  mention  each  of  its  suburban  readers  at 
least  once  a  year. 

Scarcity  of  Good  News  Gatherers. — In  the  letter 
by  Horace  Greeley  quoted  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
the  great  newspaper  man  laid  special  emphasis  on  this 
phase  of  the  country  newspaper,  and  urged  strongly 
that  the  editor  get  responsible  people  with  some  de- 
gree of  permanence  for  this  important  duty;  some 
young  lawyer,  doctor,  clerk  in  the  post  office  or  the 
like.  ''If,''  said  Mr.  Greeley,  ''you  will  make  up  at 
least  half  of  your  journal  of  local  matter  thus  col- 
lected, nobody  in  the  county  can  long  do  without  it.'* 
Ambitious  editors  have  pretty  well  agreed  with  Greeley 
as  to  the  importance  of  this  sort  of  news  service.  The 
problem  of  getting  good  correspondents,  however,  and 
permanent  ones,  is  a  real  problem  which  must  be 
solved  before  the  paper  can  begin  to  reap  the  profits 
that  accrue  from  excellent  and  well-organized  news 
gathering  over  the  whole  county. 

First  of  all,  it  is  difficult  to  find  people  who  have  a 
working  idea  of  what  constitutes  "good  news."  This 
is  the  reason  that,  in  so  many  of  the  papers  which 
print  county  correspondence,  we  find  items,  facetious, 
venomous,  and  banal  that  could  not  by  any  possibility 
have  real  news  value.     It  is  hard,  too,  to  teach  the 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  77 

correspondents  what  constitutes  news  values,  for,  as  a 
rule,  they  do  not  care  for  instruction.  They  are  likely 
to  believe  that  they  know  as  much  about  what  is  news 
as  does  the  editor  who  is  trying  to  instruct  them.  The 
choice,  then,  of  the  correspondent  is  an  important  thing 
and  too  often  the  editor  is  not  allowed  any  latitude 
of  choice,  but  must  take  what  offers  or  go  without. 
This  is  the  great  problem  of  county  correspondence — 
indeed,  it  is  practically  the  only  problem. 

The  Best  News  Gatherers. — It  is  likely  that  no  two 
editors  would  wholly  agree  as  to  what  sort  of  person 
makes  the  best  kind  of  correspondent.  Many  editors 
have  found  that  rural  school  teachers  throughout  the 
county  make  excellent  news  gatherers.  They  are  usu- 
ally glad  to  do  the  work  because  in  that  way  they  are 
able  to  give  publicity  to  the  little  doings  of  their 
schools.  Also,  this  work  brings  the  paper  to  them 
each  week  and  enables  them  to  keep  informed  of 
what  is  going  on  in  the  whole  county.  They  have 
friends  teaching  in  other  districts  and  they  like  to 
read  the  news  about  them  and  learn  what  is  being 
done  in  other  schools.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the 
editor  these  correspondents  usually  do  very  satisfac- 
tory work,  for  they  write  well,  as  a  rule,  and  submit 
good  copy.  Teachers,  living  as  they  do  practically  in 
the  midst  of  things  in  the  school  district,  have  oppor- 
tunity to  hear  all  the  news  from  the  various  famiHes 
represented  in  the  school.  Also,  they  are  mainly  out- 
siders who  have  not  lived  in  the  district  in  which  they 
are  teaching  and  hence  are  not  so  likely  to  be  par- 
tisan   if    there    are   neighborhood    unpleasantnesses. 


78  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Partisanship  is  one  of  the  worst  evils  of  country  dis- 
tricts, and  many  papers  have  had  live  news  held  back 
because  the  correspondent  did  not  want  to  say  any- 
thing about  some  of  the  neighbors  who  should  have 
figured  in  the  news. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  county  reporting  is  done 
by  school  teachers,  there  will  be  three  months  when 
the  news  reports  from  these  communities  will  be  lack- 
ing or  poorly  organized  owing  to  the  fact  that  amateur 
reporters  have  to  fill  in  during  the  summer  vacation. 
Again,  after  qualifying  for  a  good  country  reporter, 
the  teacher  may  move  out  of  the  county  entirely;  and 
often  the  use  of  teachers  entails  the  breaking  in  of 
many  new  reporters  every  fall.  The  element  of  im- 
permanence  is  the  chief  drawback  to  having  corre- 
spondents among  the  teachers. 

Other  papers  have  tried  the  clergymen  of  the  county 
with  varying  results.  Preachers  have  a  chance  to 
gather  news  and  usually  can  be  made  into  good  coun- 
try reporters.  But  there  is  often,  if  not  usually, 
trouble  from  letting  it  be  known  that  the  preacher  is  a 
correspondent.  Someone  is  sure  to  be  offended  by  his 
real  or  fancied  religious  partisanship  and  make  things 
unpleasant  for  him. 

Telephone  operators,  postmasters,  real  estate  men, 
station  agents,  insurance  agents,  bright  high  school 
pupils,  and  especially  rural  letter  carriers  are  often 
found  among  the  ranks  of  county  correspondents. 
Each  one  of  these  classes  is  brought  into  contact  with 
news  sources  and  each  has  special  points  of  excellence. 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  79 

Usually,  if  they  can  be  permanently  engaged,  their 
services  are  wholly  satisfactory. 

The  main  quality  to  look  for  when  one  is  engaging 
a  correspondent  is  genuine  interest  in  gathering  and 
writing  news.  The  rewards  of  country  reporting  are 
mainly  in  the  creditable  performance  of  the  work. 
Unless  the  correspondent  is  enthusiastic  about  it,  the 
work  will  be  perfunctorily  done.  If  a  person  of  en- 
thusiasm can  be  found,  the  editor  will  do  well  to  en- 
gage him.  The  training  that  will  be  necessary  will  be 
gladly  received  and,  if  permanence  can  be  secured,  the 
problem  for  that  district  will  be  solved.  Some  editors 
do  not  want  young  people  at  all  and  declare  that  no 
one  knows  enough  to  be  a  county  correspondent  be- 
fore he  is  thirty-five.  These  editors  want  the  ''solid" 
men  and  women  of  the  various  communities  to  report 
for  them.  They  w^ant  stability  and  responsibility  first 
of  all  in  their  reporters. 

Some  New  Methods. — "New  occasions  teach  new 
duties,"  and  with  the  advent  of  the  "practical"  side  of 
education  even  in  the  humanities,  the  editor  has  a  new 
field  opened  up  for  securing  good  county  correspond- 
ence. Teachers  in  grade  and  high  schools  are  trying 
to  make  their  teaching  of  English  composition  vital; 
they  are  trying  to  "hook  it  up  with  life."  These  prac- 
tical composition  classes  are  excellent  laboratories  for 
the  preparation  of  county  correspondence.  The  work 
may  be  done  by  different  classes  in  turn  and  there  can 
be  a  healthy  class  rivalry  developed  as  well  as  a  per- 
sonal rivalry  as  to  who  will  bring  in  the  largest  num- 
ber of  items  to  be  accepted  by  the  teacher,  who  will 


8o  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

edit  the  correspondence  before  sending  it  in.  This 
work  will  inevitably  result  in  a  keen  interest  in  the 
paper  throughout  the  school  district.  In  return,  the 
editor  can  send  the  paper  to  the  school  and  present  a 
few  books  or  magazines  to  the  school  library.  The 
question  of  permanence  will  be  pretty  well  settled  here 
too  because  there  will  always  be  some  students  who 
like  the  work  and  who  develop  skill  at  it,  who  will 
be  glad  to  furnish  the  news  during  the  summer  vaca- 
tion. 

Women's  study  clubs  and  community  clubs  also 
present  interesting  possibilities  in  the  matter  of  rural 
correspondence.  Practically  every  community  has 
organizations  of  this  nature,  and  they  are  usually  in- 
terested in  making  their  home  village  or  their  town- 
ship a  better  place  to  live  in.  The  secretary  or  a  "press 
correspondent"  may  be  designated  to  send  community 
news  to  the  paper.  They  will  be  quite  likely  to  pre- 
sent the  news  constructively  if  they  have  the  proper 
incentive  offered  by  the  editor.  The  publicity  will  be 
good  for  the  paper  and  for  the  community  from 
which  the  news  comes.  The  matter  of  compensation 
is  usually  an  easy  one  to  arrange.  A  few  reference 
books,  subscription  to  a  few  magazines,  or  free  print- 
ing of  the  club  year-book  of  programs  will  likely  be 
satisfactory. 

How  to  Handle  County  News. — In  order  for  a 
country  weekly  to  handle  properly  the  news  of  neigh- 
boring towns  and  communities  in  the  county,  there 
must  be  a  thorough,  systematic  office  schedule  evolved. 
Thursday  is  the  usual  day  of  publication  in  the  country 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  8i 

and  the  papers  are  printed  Wednesday  night  or  early 
Thursday  morning  in  order  to  ''make''  the  early  mails 
and  the  rural  delivery.  Hence  the  majority  of  country 
editors  have  demanded  that  all  county  copy  shall  be 
in  the  office  not  later  than  Tuesday  morning.  Prac- 
tically the  whole  day  Tuesday  can  be  given  to  copy- 
reading,  composition,  proofreading,  and  make-up  of 
the  correspondence  section.  This  makes  the  news 
week  for  county  correspondents  extend  from  Sunday 
to  Sunday.  Many  country  editors  say  that  Monday 
is  the  best  day  for  correspondents  to  post  their  copy 
because  that  gives  them  a  chance  to  write  it  on  Sun- 
day, which,  in  addition  to  being  a  day  set  aside  from 
regular  duties,  is  also  the  day  when  there  are  more 
things  happening  in  the  country  than  at  almost  any 
other  time. 

At  any  rate,  the  office  should  certainly  have  one 
whole  day  to  get  the  correspondence  into  shape.  Copy 
and  proof  should  be  read  very  carefully  to  make  it 
conform  to  the  style  of  the  paper,  to  correct  errors  in 
names,  to  improve  the  English,  and  to  eliminate  unfair 
and  libelous  statements. 

Ridiculous  situations  are  often  prevented  if  there  is 
a  careful  reading  of  the  copy  and  of  the  proof.  J.  L. 
Hasbrouck,  city  editor  of  the  Bloomington  (Illinois) 
Pantagraph,  relates  the  following  incident:  There 
was  a  correspondent  on  a  country  paper  in  central 
Illinois  who  was  not  being  paid  on  time,  and  who 
wished  to  inquire  the  reason.  So,  at  the  end  of  his 
weekly  news  letter,  he  added  the  query :  ''Why  don't 
I  get  my  pay?    I  have  received  no  money  from  you 


82  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

since  last  January/'  The  compositor  mischievously 
^'followed  copy''  and  it  appeared  in  the  paper  at  the 
end  of  the  correspondent's  letter.  A  reading  of  copy 
or  of  proof  would  have  prevented  much  humiliation 
for  the  editor  of  the  paper. 

Uniform  Make-up. — System  is  carried  still  further 
in  papers  which  have  a  large  amount  of  correspond- 
ence. Letters  from  the  various  communities  are  given 
approximately  the  same  place  each  week  in  the  make- 
up. This  is  worth  while  because  it  makes  the  paper 
easier  to  read,  and  the  subscribers  like  to  have  a  paper 
that  prints  the  news  they  want  to  read  in  a  place  where 
they  can  find  it  without  delay.  Papers  which  have  tried 
uniform  make-up  are  usuajly  unwilling  to  go  back  to 
the  haphazard  method  of'  putting  stuff  where  it  will 
fit  and  locking  up  when  the  page  is  full.  The  ma- 
jority of  country  papers  ''size"  their  country  locals 
now  just  as  they  do  their  town  locals.  Many  of  the 
papers  carry  a  ''box"  above  each  letter  stating  the 
name  and  telephone  number  of  the  correspondent. 
Sometimes  this  results  in  more  news  being  given  to 
the  correspondent  and,  unless  he  is  a  very  retiring 
sort  of  person,  is  usually  a  source  of  satisfaction  to 
him.  Most  of  us  are  not  beyond  the  flattery  of  print- 
er's ink  and  desirable  publicity. 

Some  editors,  however,  have  found  that  it  is  not  a 
good  plan  to  have  the  correspondents  sign  their  copy. 
It  is  declared  that  this  closes  some  sources  of  news 
to^the  paper  and  that  it  violates  one  of  the  rules  of 
country  offices:  Do  not  disclose  the  source  of  your 
information.      Many  times  undesirable  publicity   re- 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  83 

suits  from  county  correspondence,  and  the  reporter,  if 
he  is  known,  is  blamed  for  things  which  may  not  be  at 
all  his  fault.  This  fact  sometimes  keeps  good  cor- 
respondents from  writing  all  the  news  to  the  paper. 
For  these  reasons  some  editors  make  it  a  policy  not  to 
reveal  the  names  of  their  correspondents,  and  the 
whole  thing  is  conducted  in  a  manner  almost  furtive. 

Telephone  News  Gathering. — Because  of  the  fact 
that  it  is  so  difficult  to  get  and  to  hold  good  reporters 
from  the  country  districts  and  small  towns,  many  edi- 
tors gather  their  news  personally.  The  telephone, 
which  is  almost  universal  now,  is  the  principal  means 
of  communication  with  the  field.  The  editor  has 
friends  and  acquaintances  throughout  the  country  upon 
whom  he  can  rely.  These%)eople  are  called  at  least 
once  a  week  and  tell  the  editor  the  bits  of  news  they 
have  gathered  since  he  last  called  them.  If  a  really 
big  story  ''breaks,''  they  are  instructed  to  call  the  office 
at  once  so  that  the  editor  may  do  as  seems  best  to  him 
in  handling  the  situation.  This  v/orks  very  satisfac- 
torily in  many  cases.  The  chief  advantage  is  that  the 
local  representative  is  trained  to  call  the  office  when- 
ever there  is  anything  worth  while,  and  let  the  editor 
know  that  he  should  make  some  arrangement  to  cover 
the  story.  This  sort  of  service  is  inexpensive,  and 
the  "correspondent''  will  usually  be  satisfied  with  a  sub- 
scription to  the  paper.  The  telephone  method  has  the 
added  advantage  of  bringing  in  news  that  is  more 
nearly  up  to  date  than  that  which  was  written  Sunday 
and  posted  Monday  morning. 

Special  Representatives. — Most  county  papers  of 


84  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

today  have  special  representatives  in  addition  to  the 
regular  corps  of  correspondents.  Many  have  found 
it  worth  while  to  know  at  once  of  every  death  in  the 
county.  To  secure  this  news,  blanks  are  sent  out  to 
all  the  undertakers  in  the  territory.  These  blanks  are 
filled  out  and  posted  to  the  office  as  soon  as  possible 
after  a  death.  The  doctors,  too,  are  often  supplied 
with  blanks  for  particulars  in  regard  to  all  vital  statis- 
tics. The  local  justices  of  the  peace  are  given  forms 
to  fill  in  regard  to  cases  that  are  to  be  tried  and  the 
ministers  have  blanks  to  use  in  giving  notices  of  mar- 
riages. These  services  are  usually  given  to  the  paper 
in  exchange  for  subscriptions. 

These  blanks  are  simple  and  can  be  printed  at 
slight  expense  when  the  job  office  is  not  rushed. 
Every  editor  can  decide  what  questions  he  wishes  to 
have  answered  in  his  blanks.  The  Wisconsin  State 
Journal  in  its  wedding  blank  asks  for  the  following 
information:  Name  of  bride,  of  groom;  residence  of 
bride,  of  groom;  name  and  residence  of  bride's  par- 
ents, of  groom's  parents;  are  they  living?  Groom's 
occupation,  place  of  marriage,  date  and  hour  of  mar- 
riage, name  of  minister  and  his  church;  maid  of  honor 
and  other  maids ;  residence  and  description  of  dresses. 
Best  man  and  other  gentlemen  attendants ;  residences. 
Describe  bride's  dress.  Name  of  wedding  march; 
played  by  whom?  Decoration  of  altar  and  other  parts 
of  church  or  residence.  Number  of  guests;  wedding 
^collation — where,  when,  and  by  whom  served?  Wed- 
ding trip :  Where,  when  return  ?  At  home,  when  and 
where?    Names  and  residences  of  out  of  town  guests. 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  85 

All  these  particulars  can  be  arranged  in  question 
form  on  a  blank  with  space  left  for  the  answers  to  be 
written  in.  Any  further  information  may  be  written 
on  the  back  of  the  form.  Other  forms  for  deaths, 
births,  trials,  and  so  on  can  be  devised  by  the  editor 
to  meet  his  individual  wishes. 

Training  the  Correspondents. — The  county  cor- 
respondent who  can  go  ahead  with  his  work  without 
supervision  from  the  newspaper  office  is  almost  un- 
known. No  matter  how  earnest,  intelligent,  and 
faithful  the  correspondent  may  be,  there  are  certain 
things  which  will  have  to  be  explained  to  him.  He 
must  be  taught  the  point  of  view  of  the  paper;  he 
must  learn  what  real  country  news  is;  and,  usually, 
he  must  be  taught  how  to  write  the  kind  of  stories  that 
people  want  to  read.  If  the  correspondent  is  a  person 
of  good  intelligence,  this  task  will  not  be  hard.  He 
will  soon  learn,  and  he  will  not  resent  the  attempt  to 
teach  him.  But  the  editor  must  be  tactful  and  pa- 
tient with  the  correspondent.  He  must  make  it  plain 
that  the  copy  sent  in  from  the  country  will  have  to  be 
edited  just  as  any  other  copy  is,  and  that  there  will 
likely  be  some  changes  in  it  before  it  appears  in  print. 
Some  of  the  material  will  be  ''killed''  altogether  and 
other  parts  will  be  rewritten.  The  wise  editor  will 
take  the  time  in  each  case  to  make  the  ''why''  of  the 
change  perfectly  evident.  It  will  be  an  added  duty  for 
the  already-too-busy  editor,  but  it  will  pay  in  the  end 
because  the  correspondent  will  learn  m.ore  rapidly  and 
will  get  more  and  better  news  items  if  the  editor  takes 
the  time  for  a  little  personal  coaching. 


86  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Some  editors  have  adopted  the  plan  of  sending  the 
copy  back  each  week  to  a  new  correspondent  so  that 
he  may  see  just  how  his  stories  were  changed,  and 
the  editor's  reasons  for  the  change,  written  in  the 
margin,  will  have  more  point  when  the  correspondent 
can  compare  the  two  columns  side  by  side.  If  the 
correspondent  uses  a  typewriter,  the  editor  instructs 
him  to  keep  a  carbon  copy  of  what  is  sent  in  to  the 
office,  and  the  comparison  can  be  made  when  the  paper 
arrives.  This  is  hard  work  and  it  takes  time  and 
attention,  but  it  gets  results  and  is  recommended  to 
the  editor  when  he  is  breaking  in  a  new  county  re- 
porter. 

Style  Sheet  and  Instructions. — Most  offices  of 
any  size  have  some  sort  of  a  style  sheet  which  states 
in  a  simple  and  concrete  way  the  usage  of  the  office. 
It  gives  rules  for  punctuation,  capitalization,  and  ab- 
breviation. Sometimes,  too,  there  is  an  ^'index  expur- 
gatorius''  or  list  of  words  and  phrases  to  be  avoided. 
If  the  paper  is  to  be  characterized  by  any  uniformity, 
it  is  important  that  all  who  write  for  it  should  observe 
these  rules  of  usage.  The  office  may  use  a  style  quite 
different  from  that  which  the  correspondent  acquired 
in  the  public  schools.  Hence  it  will  be  necessary  for 
the  new  writer  to  study  the  style  sheet  carefully  in 
order  that  his  work  may  be  written  in  harmony  with 
the  other  copy  that  goes  into  the  paper.  This  will 
mean  that  the  editor  will  have  less  to  do  in  reading  the 
copy  ^nd  preparing  it  for  publication.  There  will  be 
fewer  changes  in  the  reporter's  material ;  this  will  help 
preserve  his  self-respect.     A  style  sheet  for  country 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  87 

offices  will  be  found  in  the  appendix  to  this  volume. 
Instructions,  too,  are  usually  sent  out  to  the  new 
correspondent  telling  specifically  what  sort  of  news  is 
desired  and  how  it  should  be  treated;  and  there  is 
some  detail,  usually,  as  to  what  sort  of  news  to  avoid. 
The  carefully  prepared  sheet  of  instructions  is  invalu- 
able and  helps  the  new  correspondent  greatly.  It  also 
lessens  the  editor's  work  in  breaking  in  the  reporter. 
Following  is  a  set  of  instructions  arranged  from  in- 
struction books  of  several  country  offices.  Because 
of  the  importance  of  such  instructions  they  are  given 
at  some  length. 

Instructions  to  Correspondents 

We  want  to  publish  the  news ;  send  in  all  you  can  get. 
Do  not  express  your  own  opinions  about  the  news  events ; 
let  the  public  make  its  own  decisions  on  these  matters. 
Do  not  depend  upon  rumor  any  more  than  is  absolutely 
necessary;  if  at  all  possible,  investigate  all  important 
news  for  yourself.  Do  not  submit  news  which  would,  if 
printed,  make  an  enemy  either  for  you  or  for  the  paper. 
We  are  trusting  you  in  this  matter.  Do  not  ''poach" 
news  from  the  territory  of  another  correspondent. 

Every  honest  man  likes  publicity.  Let  people  know 
that  you  are  a  newspaper  correspondent  and  you  will 
often  get  news  items  when  you  least  expect  them.  We 
are  sending  a  list  of  the  paper's  subscribers  with  this 
pamphlet.  Make  notes  of  their  doings  and  the  doings 
of  their  friends.  It  will  please  them  and  make  friends 
for  you  and  for  the  paper. 

If  possible,  write  a  letter  each  week,  even  if  there  are 
only  a  few  news  notes.  People  get  used  to  seeing  your 
notes  every  week  and  don't  like  to  be  di^ppointed.  Keep 
people  interested  in  the  paper  by  telling  weekly  all  the 
news  of  your  community. 


88  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Who?  Where?  When?  What?  Why?  How?  An- 
swer all  these  questions  in  every  news  story  you  send  in 
and  you  will  be  sure  to  make  your  correspondence  inter- 
esting. People  want  to  kno\v  the  details  about  events  of 
general  interest,  and  the  more  you  supply  this  want  the 
better  you  will  please  your  readers. 

In  cases  of  death,  give  the  name  in  full  and  the  age ; 
if  a  child,  the  names  of  the  parents ;  if  a  married  woman, 
the  full  name  of  the  husband;  the  cause  of  death,  when 
it  was,  when  or  where  the  funeral  was  or  will  be  held, 
and  the  name  of  the  clergyman.  An  account  of  a  fu- 
neral will  interest  practically  everybody  and  should  be 
unfailingly  accurate.  Tell  something  about  the  person- 
ality of  the  deceased,  and  of  his  standing  in  the  com- 
munity. Don't  forget  to  give  the  names  of  the  children, 
and  of  the  brothers  and  sisters.  Be  sure  to  spell  them 
correctly.  If  the  name  is  an  unusual  one,  spell  it  out  in 
big  Roman  letters  so  the  printer  cannot  mistake  it. 

We  want  to  make  a  note  of  every  birth  that  takes 
place  in  our  territory  and  correspondents  should  never 
omit  news  of  this  sort.  Give  the  names  of  the  parents, 
place  of  residence,  date  of  birth,  and  sex  of,  child.  Do 
not  attempt  cheap  humor  in  dealing  with  this  sort  of 
news. 

Marriages  should  be  reported  as  follows:  Names  of 
contracting  parties,  names  of  parents,  place  of  residence, 
where  and  when  married,  and  by  whom.  If  other  so- 
cial events  are  connected  with  the  marriage  give  the 
names  of  the  people  present.  Report  everything  the 
ladies  do  that  is  of  public  interest.  If  they  entertain 
guests  from  out  of  town,  give  the  names  of  the  guests 
and  their  place  of  residence. 

This  paper  is  dated  Thursday,  but  it  is  printed  Wed- 
nesday night.  Send  your  regular  correspondence  in  so 
that  it  will  reach  this  office  not  later  than  Tuesday  morn- 
ing. Special  news  may  be  telephoned  in  if  it  is  of  suffi- 
ci^t  importance.  The  most  valuable  news  is  usually  that 
which  is  the  newest.  Get  this  kind  in  by  telephone,  so 
we  can  surprise  our  readers  with  our  promptness.  We 
want  our  readers  to  get  the  idea  that  we  are  printing 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  89 

the  news  while  it  is  news  and  we  want  our  correspondents 
to  help  us  maintain  that  reputation. 

Aside  from  the  news  of  your  community,  you  may 
send  us  other  local  matters  of  interest.  Speak  a  good 
word  for  your  town,  your  churches,  your  local  indus- 
tries, societies,  and  organizations.  People  like  to  read 
the  news  first,  and  then  they  like  to  see  accounts  of 
things  in  which  they  have  a  personal  interest.  Relics, 
heirlooms,  old  coins,  natural  curiosities,  etc.,  can  be  de- 
scribed and  will  be  of  interest  to  everyone,  even  if  the 
person  who  owns  them  is  unknown.  If  a  thing  inter- 
ests you,  it  would  likely  interest  others.  Send  in  what 
appears  interesting  to  you. 

Give  accurate  reports  of  all  public  meetings.  Do  not 
give  your  own  ideas  concerning  what  the  speaker  said. 
If  you  want  to  go  into  detail,  quote  from  his  address ;  but 
be  fair  in  your  selection.  Do  not  warp  or  twist  your 
account. 

Don't  give  too  much  publicity  to  certain  persons,  even 
though  they  are  good  news  sources.  Others  who  are 
not  mentioned  so  often  will  note  your  apparent  par- 
tiality. 

Don't  try  to  use  the  paper  as  a  means  to  "get  even" 
with  anyone.  It  will  likely  injure  you  and  it  cannot  fail 
to  injure  the  paper. 

Whenever  you  can,  speak  a  good  word  for  the  paper 
and  get  people  interested  in  it.  You  are  our  agent  and 
representative  in  your  territory.  You  are  authorized  to 
take  subscriptions,  advertisements,  and  orders  for  job 
-printing,  and  we  will  allow  you  a  generous  discount  on 
all  orders  taken.  Send  in  the  names  of  any  people  in 
your  territory  who  might  become  subscribers,  and  we 
will  send  them  the  paper  gratis  for  several  weeks,  after 
which  you  can  likely  get  their  subscriptions.  Collect 
the  full  subscription  price  and  remit  two-thirds  of  it  to 
us,  keeping  the  rest  as  your  commission. 

Keeping  the  Correspondent  Interested. — After 
the  editor  has  secured  a  good  county  reporter  and 


90  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

has  trained  him  to  efficiency,  the  next  problem  is  to 
make  the  appointment  permanent,  for  permanency  is  a 
thing  greatly  to  be  desired  in  all  rural  correspondents. 
It  is  pretty  difficult  to  get  something  for  nothing,  and 
most  people  do  not  care  to  give  their  time  to  reporting 
country  locals  unless  they  get  something  tangible  for 
it.  Most  country  reporters  do  not  think  that  a  copy 
of  the  paper  each  week  is  enough  payment  for  writing 
the  correspondence.  The  editor,  to  be  sure,  furnishes 
stationery,  stamped  envelopes,  and,  perhaps,  pencils 
and  an  eraser.  In  most  cases  this  seems  too  little,  and 
often  the  character  of  the  correspondence  and  the  in- 
frequency  of  it  show  that  the  county  reporter  is  not 
being  properly  compensated  and  is  losing  interest  in 
his  work.  Such  news  writers  have  to  be  urged  into 
activity  and  it  is  difficult  for  the  editor  to  overcome 
the  apathy  of  the  correspondent  who  has  once  become 
indifferent. 

The  Personal  Touch. — Perhaps  the  best  thing  the 
editor  can  do  if  the  correspondent  is  worth  trying  to 
retain,  is  to  develop  more  friendly  personal  relations 
with  him.  This  will  go  far  toward  rousing  the  activ- 
ity of  the  correspondent.  Many  editors  make  it  a 
point  to  call  on  their  county  reporters  at  least  once  a 
year,  and  to  write  them  personal  letters  as  often  as 
any  good  purpose  can  be  served  by  such  letter 
writing.  .^ 

"The  aggressive  editor  will  find  that  it  pays  big  to 
g^t  over  his  territory  at  least  once  a  year,''  says 
Buford  O.  Brown  in  the  Inland  Printer.  "People 
will  appreciate  seeing  him  and  finding  out  that  he  is 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  91 

interested  in  their  problems,  their  schools,  their 
churches,  their  roads,  their  homes.  ...  A  personal 
visit  to  fifty  correspondents — and  few  country  papers 
have  half  that  number,  or  need  them — would  require 
surprisingly  little  time  if  the  editor  went  at  it  system- 
atically.'' 

A  holiday  greeting  at  Christmas  is  an  inexpensive 
and  friendly  way  of  letting  the  correspondent  know 
that  his  work  is  appreciated.  The  editor  who  is 
human  and  lets  his  writers  know  it,  will  get  much 
better  results  than  the  one  whose  relations  with  his 
reporters  are  largely  impersonal.  It  is  a  good  thing  to 
supply  the  reporter  not  only  with  copy  paper,  pencils, 
stamped  envelopes,  and  other  necessary  supplies,  but 
to  print  for  him  some  of  the  office  stationery  with  his 
name  on  it,  or,  if  he  prefers,  private  stationery  with- 
out the  office  name.  Magazine  exchanges  sent  to  the 
correspondent  from  time  to  time  assure  him  that  he  is 
not  forgotten.  A  personal  letter  or  a  telephone  call 
after  he  has  sent  in  some  especially  good  material 
makes  him  feel  that  he  has  done  well  and  encourages 
him  to  try  again. 

Various  '^get-together"  ideas  have  worked  out  well 
in  promoting  good  fellowship  and  good  work  among 
correspondents.  Some  editors  give  annual  picnics  at 
which  the  office  force  and  the  correspondents  are 
guests.  Buford  O.  Brown,  quoted  above,  cites  an 
example  of  one  country  editor  who  invited  all  his  cor- 
respondents to  a  circus  each  year,  and  of  another  who 
was  host  for  a  day  at  the  county  fair.  The  editor  met 
all  the  bills  and  nothing  was  omitted — not  even  the 


92  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

side  shows.  This  ^'common-meeting"  idea  has  proved 
to  be  a  great  thing  for  fostering  enthusiasm  for  the 
paper.  The  editor  meets  his  correspondents  and  they 
become  friends — a  most  valuable  condition  for  secur- 
ing better  results  in  the  paper.  Solidarity  is  promoted 
and  the  correspondence  is  usually  of  a  much  higher 
grade  after  a  meeting  of  this  sort. 

Value  Received. — After  all,  the  way  to  keep  any- 
one at  his  work  is  to  make  him  feel  that  he  is  receiving 
full  value  and  due  appreciation  for  what  he  is  doing. 
The  way  to  keep  a  county  correspondent  interested  is 
the  same  in  essence  as  the  way  to  keep  the  foreman 
of  the  composing  room  interested — give  him  what  his 
services  are  worth.  If  the  correspondent  is  satisfied 
that  private  stationery,  a  subscription  to  the  paper, 
some  magazine  exchanges,  an  annual  picnic,  and  so 
on  are  giving  him  full  value  for  what  he  is  doing,  he 
will  be  interested.  But  so  long  as  he  is  dissatisfied 
there  is  no  way  to  get  him  to  do  the  best  work  of 
which  he  is  capable.  For  that  reason  many  editors 
during  the  past  few  years  have  come  to  the  system 
of  paying  at  space  rates  for  all  the  correspondence 
they  use.  In  many  ways  this  relieves  the  situation. 
The  editor  can  freely  **blue  pencil"  the  work  just  as  he 
does  the  work  of  his  office  reporter.  He  can  insist 
more  closely  on  his  own  point  of  view.  The  corre- 
spondent will  be  more  careful  to  send  in  as  much  news 
as  possible,  and  will  try  harder  to  make  it  conform  to 
the  standards  of  the  paper,  both  in  subject  matter  and 
in  style.  The  result  will  be  a  greatly  improved  rural 
correspondence  section.     The  rate  need  not  be  large, 


COUNTY  CORRESPONDENCE  93 

but  it  ought  to  be  so  arranged  as  to  give  the  county 
correspondent  value  received  for  every  bit  of  time  he 
spends  in  gathering  and  writing  news,  and  it  ought  to 
be  paid  promptly  by  check. 

If  the  editor  feels  that  he  cannot  afford  to  pay  cash 
for  such  service,  he  can  often  satisfy  his  correspond- 
ents by  making  them  the  community  agents  for  his 
paper  on  a  commission  basis,  allowing  them  a  certain 
per  cent  for  new  subscribers  and  a  smaller  per  cent 
for  renewals.  A  commission  on  advertising  and  job 
printing  may  also  be  offered.  If  the  correspondent  is 
a  business-like  person,  perhaps  he  can  make  more 
money  from  the  commission  arrangement  than  from 
space  rates  for  what  he  writes.  As  a  rule,  however, 
the  editor  who  can  afford  to  pay  straight  space  rates 
has  the  advantage  over  those  who  rely  on  subscription 
commissions,  for  his  reporters  will  get  exactly  what 
they  have  earned.  Often  the  reporter  on  commission, 
if  he  is  a  clever  solicitor,  gets  more  money  than  he 
has  earned  by  his  writing ;  and  perhaps  the  person  who 
is  not  a  good  solicitor  but  is  a  good  reporter  will  get 
less  than  his  services  are  worth. 

Summary. — It  is  impossible  to  lay  down  hard  and 
fast  rules  for  the  guidance  of  the  editor  as  to  the  way 
in  which  to  manage  his  county  correspondence.  So 
much  depends  upon  the  local  situation  that  he  must 
work  out  the  details  of  the  business  himself.  The 
foregoing  methods,  however,  have  all  been  tried  and 
have  proved  acceptable  under  certain  conditions.  The 
problem  is  to  find  the  method  that  best  meets  condi- 
tions as  they  exist  in  a  given  field.    But  one  thing  is 


94  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

certain,  and  that  is  that  county  correspondence  pays 
well  for  all  the  time,  money,  and  labor  spent  on  it. 
As  a  circulation-  and  advertising-getter  there  is  noth- 
ing to  equal  it  and  nothing  else  so  cheap.  If  the 
editor  has  an  ambition  to  be  of  more  than  merely 
local  significance,  he  cannot  afford  to  neglect  the  field 
of  county  correspondence. 

Suggestions 

Try  to  get  permanent  correspondents. 

Maintain  friendly  personal  relations  with  all  your 
news  gatherers. 

A  word  of  commendation  occasionally  is  a  good 
lubricant. 

Inculcate  promptness  and  system  in  sending  news. 

If  you  pay  cash  to  your  correspondents,  remit 
promptly  by  check. 

Edit  your  correspondence  carefully  for  "color''  and 
libel. 

Train  your  correspondents  as  tactfully  as  possible. 

See  that  your  correspondents  are  well  supplied  at 
all  times  with  the  necessary  equipment. 

Urge  all  country  reporters  to  submit  letters  each 
week. 

Make  county  correspondence  a  feature  of  your 
paper;  devote  a  special  place  to  it  in  the  make-up. 


CHAPTER   IV 
AGRICULTURAL  NEWS 

The  Farm  and  the  Country  Weekly. — It  has  been 
estimated  that  considerably  more  than  half  the  popula- 
tion of  the  United  States  is  directly  dependent  upon 
the  farm.  Tilling  of  the  soil  in  all  its  ramifications 
is  what  supports  the  small  towns  and  all  the  business 
in  these  towns.  Our  whole  prosperity  is  founded  upon 
the  prosperity  of  the  farmer.  It  is  certain  that  nearly 
all  the  country  weeklies  in  this  country  are  dependent 
upon  agriculture  for  their  existence ;  yet  it  is  true  that 
the  average  country  weekly  does  not  take  full  advan- 
tage of  its  opportunities  for  usefulness  among  the 
farmers  who  read  it.  Modern  business  methods,  effi- 
cient means  of  getting  out  of  the  soil  all  that  we  can 
without  injuring  or  ^'mining''  it,  are  of  fundamental 
importance  to  all  of  us;  yet  the  country  weekly,  in 
many  cases,  has  not  waked  up  to  the  possibilities  of 
service  and  of  assistance  in  bringing  about  efficiency 
on  the  farm. 

In  the  Union  station  at  Washington,  D.  C,  there  is 
the  following  instription  on  the  wall : 

The  Farm  :     Best  Home  of  the  Family 

Main  Source  of  National  Wealth 
Foundation  of  Civilized  Society 
The  Natural  Providence 
95 


96  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

The  country  editor  would  do  well  to  remember  this 
and  ponder  its  meaning.  If  the  farm  is  all  that  this 
inscription  indicates,  it  is  imperative  that  he  do  what 
he  can  to  foster  this  immense  business.  Even  if  he 
has  no  feeling  of  responsibility  for  community  better- 
ment, pure  business  acumen  would  point  out  to  him 
that  the  farm  should  not  be  neglected  in  his  columns, 
for,  unless  the  fundamental  business  is  well  ''played 
up,"  the  derivative  businesses,  of  which  running  a 
newspaper  is  indubitably  one,  will  suffer.  Selfishness 
alone  would  impel  him  to  help  solve  the  rural  problem, 
upon  the  proper  solution  of  which  depend  the  comfort, 
happiness,  and  efficiency  of  the  human  factors  of  this 
great  industry. 

News  Proportion— Some  Examples. — In  a  study 
of  relative  space  given  to  agricultural  and  to  town 
news,  Professor  F.  W.  Beckman,  of  Iowa  State  Col- 
lege, found  some  startling  facts.  He  took  four  papers, 
all  published  in  agricultural  districts,  and  made  a  care- 
ful quantitative  analysis.  While  the  figures,  since  they 
are  based  upon  only  four  issues  of  the  papers,  are 
not  to  be  taken  as  wholly  indicative  of  conditions,  they 
are  plainly  suggestive  of  the  trend  of  country  jour- 
nalism. 

The  first  paper,  published  in  a  town  of  400  with  a 
rural  trade-population  of  1,000,  had  200  town  sub- 
scribers and  400  country  subscribers.  The  value  of 
the  town  property  was  $600,000;  the  value  of  the 
farming  property  was  more  than  $5,000,000.  Never- 
theless, there  were  but  3  inches  of  country  news  to 
420  inches  of  town  news. 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS  97 

The  second  paper,  published  in  a  town  of  700  with 
about  1,800  rural  population,  had  200  town  subscrib- 
ers and  500  in  the  country.  The  value  of  the  town 
property  was  $800,000;  that  of  the  country  was  $7,- 
000,000.  Yet  in  this  paper  there  were  only  4  inches 
of  rural  news  to  500  inches  of  town  news. 

The  third  paper,  published  in  a  town  of  3,200  popu- 
lation with  a  country  population  of  2,500,  had  900 
town  subscribers  and  700  rural  subscribers.  There 
were  3  inches  of  real  farm  news  and  620  inches  of 
town  news. 

The  last  paper,  published  in  a  town  of  3,000  with 
a  country  population  of  5,000,  had  1,000  town  sub- 
scribers and  1,200  from  the  country.  The  town  prop- 
erty was  worth  $5,000,000  while  the  country  prop- 
erty was  assessed  at  $12,000,000.  But  in  this  paper 
there  were  only  2  inches  of  farm  news  and  620  inches 
of  town  news. 

The  Newspaper  and  the  Farmer. — Most  papers 
give  their  attention  almost  wholly  to  the  affairs  of 
the  town  in  which  they  are  published,  and,  if  they 
wish  to  be  of  more  than  local  significance,  to  the 
affairs  of  the  other  towns  of  the  county.  The  big  field 
of  the  country  weekly  is  too  often  neglected.  It  is 
plain  that  it  is  time  for  the  country  editor  to  realize 
that  the  farm  is  at  the  basis  of  things,  and  to  do  what 
he  can  to  promote  the  welfare  of  those  who  are  en- 
gaged in  the  business  of  agriculture.  The  day  has 
passed  when  people  who  live  in  the  country  are 
ashamed  of  it.  The  farmer  is  a  business  man,  engaged 
in  a  business  which  is  bigger  than  all  others  com- 


98  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

bined.  The  newspapers  of  the  country  have  a  won- 
derful opportunity  here  if  they  have  the  foresight  and 
intelligence  to  make  the  most  of  it. 

George  A.  Starring,  editor  of  publications,  South 
Dakota  State  University,  writes: 

Without  the  support  of  progressive  newspapers,  we 
would  have  been  from  five  to  ten  years  slower  in  agri- 
cultural progress  in  South  Dakota,  as  well  as  in  the  en- 
tire nation.  Time  was  when  the  only  farm  news  printed 
in  newspapers  consisted  of  crop  reports,  effects  of 
blight  or  pests,  and  features  of  more  than  usual  interest. 
A  few  years  ago,  however,  college  propaganda  was 
seized  upon  as  good  news  stuff — good  news  because  sub- 
scribers wanted  it. 

In  this  progressive  age,  weekly  and  daily  papers  print 
column  upon  column  of  farm  news,  which  is  news,  not 
because  it  chronicles  events,  but  because  it  suggests  sane, 
profitable  and  permanent  farming  methods.  Our  agri- 
cultural professors  are  called  upon  almost  daily  for  farm 
information  to  be  published  in  countless  publications  hav- 
ing thousands  of  readers. 

The  home  paper  is  a  first-class  medium  for  the  dis- 
semination of  better  farming  propaganda.  The  average 
reader  feels  that  his  home  editor  is  protecting  him  against 
fake  reading  matter.  He  respects  his  local  paper.  The 
local  paper  is  the  last  to  be  thrown  into  the  wastebasket. 

Of  course  everyone  realizes  that  for  consistent,  down- 
right effective  hammering  on  progressive  farming  noth- 
ing ever  has  supplanted  or  ever  will  "supplant  the  farm 
papers.  Every  up-to-date  farmer  reads  carefully  one  or 
more  farm  magazines — at  least  one  which  makes  a  spe- 
cialty of  farming  conditions  in  his  own  state.  The 
hearty  cooperation  of  farm  papers,  the  general  press,  and 
our  agricultural  colleges  is  doing  wonders  in  widespread 
farm  and  home  uplift. 

What  Mr.  Starring  says  suggests  a  situation  which 
ought  to  be  true  but  one  which,  unfortunately,  is  still 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS  99 

a  long  way  from  practical  fulfillment.  The  country 
papers  that  print  ''column  upon  column  of  farm  news'' 
are  mostly  edited  and  published  in  Utopia.  Some  use 
an  agricultural  ready-print  page.  But  this  material  is 
not  local  agricultural  news.  It  is  interesting  and  valu- 
able, but  it  is  not  vital  as  local  copy  would  be.  The 
best  country  weeklies  have  made  a  start  toward  de- 
veloping the  local  agricultural  news  field.  This  is  the 
goal  toward  which  the  country  press  is  slowly  work- 
ing. The  efforts,  though  only  in  the  beginning,  have 
already  produced  great  results.  If  the  country  press 
will  awaken  to  its  possibilities,  the  next  ten  years  will 
see  many  of  the  most  perplexing  rural  problems  well 
on  the  way  to  a  satisfactory  solution. 

The  Place  of  the  Country  Weekly.— The  editor 
who  has  made  up  his  mind  that  he  ought  to  display  a 
more  active  interest  in  the  problems  of  the  farm  may 
find  that  he  is  in  doubt  as  to  just  how  far  his  new 
jurisdiction  should  extend.  The  farmer  who  does 
not  take  a  daily  or  semi-weekly  paper  is  comparatively 
rare,  and  most  of  them  take  at  least  one  farm  journal 
besides.  The  city  paper  will  often  present  interesting 
bits  of  farm  news,  especially  in  connection  with  new 
processes,  unusual  crops,  methods  of  crop  rotation, 
improved  machinery,  and  the  like.  The  farm  paper 
will  undoubtedly  be  able  to  speak  with  more  authority 
than  can  the  editor  of  the  country  weekly  in  respect 
to  technical  matters  like  tilling  the  soil  and  other  prob- 
lems of  the  farm.  The  editor  is  quick  to  see  this, 
and,  because  of  the  fact  that  he  cannot  speak  with 
authority,  he  often  forbears  to  speak  at  all.     After 


100  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

all,  it  seems  a  bit  presumptuous  for  an  outsider  to 
attempt  to  tell  another  man  how  to  run  his  business,  a 
But  the  point  is  this :  The  editor  should  not  be  an  out-  ' 
sider,  but  truly  an  '"insider"  on  all  farm  questions. 
Furthermore,  farming  is  not  the  business  merely  of 
the  farmer;  in  the  last  analysis,  it  is  the  business  of 
every  one  of  us  who  live  in  the  rural  districts  and  in 
the  small  towns  and  cities.  Of  course  the  editor  can- 
not be  a  practical  farmer  as  can  the  man  who  is  en- 
gaged in  farming  every  day  in  the  year.  But  he 
can  be  intelligently  enough  informed  to  grasp  the  sig- 
nificance of  everything  that  is  going  on  about  him. 
There  is  distinctly  a  place  for  the  local  paper  that 
neither  the  city  paper  nor  the  farm  journal  can  fill. 
The  farm  news  in  the  city  paper  is  infrequent,  scanty, 
and  general.  The  farm  paper,  too,  is  often  general 
in  its  treatment  of  agricultural  news,  and  methods  de- 
scribed are  not  always  suitable  to  the  individual  prob- 
lem of  the  reader.  This  is  especially  true  of  those 
farm  journals  which  have  a  nation-wide  circulation. 
The  function  of  the  home  paper  is  to  present  farm 
news  that  is  local,  and  that  applies  directly  to  local 
conditions.  The  editor  ought  to  know  that  there  is 
news  value  in  the  story  of  a  man  raising  alfalfa  in  a 
community  where  it  has  never  before  been  raised. 
He  ought  to  extract  every  bit  of  news  value  from  a 
story  of  this  sort  and  present  it  to  his  readers.  No 
city  paper  or  farm  paper  could  get  the  local  story  so 
completely  as  he  can  get  it.  He  does  not  have  to 
know,  technically,  a  great  many  things,  but  he  must 
be  able  to  appreciate  the  difference  between  the  sig- 


AGRICULTURAI.  NEWS         ,.,!,  .W 

nificant  and  the  trivial,  and  to  sift  the  material  which 
does  appear  so  that  he  will  not  be  in  the  embarrassing 
position  of  having  published  something  that  is  non- 
sense, and  which  only  arouses  the  amused  contempt 
of  his  farmer  readers.  The  fact  is  that  most  editors 
who  do  not  make  a  feature  of  agricultural  news  either 
do  not  see  the  need  of  it,  or  have  not  the  energy  to 
prepare  material  that  is  worth  while.  It  takes  more 
or  less  efifort  to  get  it,  and  they  lack  the  initiative  to 
forsake  the  line  of  least  resistance  and  go  out  after 
what  is  vital.  As  a  result  the  country  weekly  neg- 
lects rather  than  emphasizes  agricultural  news. 

The  Editor's  Opportunity. — The  editor  who  wants 
to  handle  farm  news  constructively  and  is  in  earnest 
about  fitting  himself  to  wTite  intelligently  about  farm- 
ing and  agricultural  methods  must  avail  himself  of 
every  opportunity  of  gaining  authoritative  informa- 
tion. The  task  will  not  be  an  easy  one,  and  there  will 
be  times  when  he  will  be  discouraged  and  will  ques- 
tion the  value  of  his  efforts.  But  if  he  has  the  idea 
firmly  enough,  fixed  in  his  mind,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  he  can  do  a  great  deal  of  good  in  the  work. 

It  is  only  a  few  years  since  the  farmer  began  to  be- 
lieve that  the  agricultural  college  had  anything  vital 
to  give  him.  Up  to  that  time  there  was  a  great  deal 
of  derision  and  contempt  among  the  farmers  for  these 
men  who  thought  that  the  college  could  teach  farm- 
ing just  as  it  teaches  law  or  medicine.  Now,  though, 
the  farmer  has  begun  to  see  that  the  agricultural  col- 
lege can  give  him  practical  help  and  he  is  usually  glad 
to  avail  himself  of  the  specialized  and  expert  knowl- 


V>z.  '.  ..  ]  tH£  'COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

edge  which  the  scientifically  trained  man  can  furnish. 
The  expert  has  something  the  farmer  needs,  and  the 
farmer  must  come  to  it.  As  one  professor  in  a  col- 
lege of  agriculture  put  it  recently :  "The  calf  doesn't 
always  like  to  be  fed  on  skimmed  milk  and  calf  meal, 
but  we  know  that  it  is  good  for  him  and  hunger  finally 
brings  him  to  it.  The  farmer,  in  the  same  way,  by 
poor  crop  returns,  fruit  blight,  and  the  like  was  forced 
to  come  to  the  soil  and  crop  experts  to  get  advice  as 
to  the  best  methods  of  getting  the  most  possible  from 
his  labor.    He  was  starved  to  it,  just  as  the  calf  was." 

The  fact  that  these  despised  ''book  farmers''  could 
increase  his  income  gave  the  farmer  more  respect  for 
them;  he  saw  that  expert  knowledge  paid  cash  divi- 
dends. Since  the  farmers  have  come  to  acknowledge 
that  it  is  possible  for  men  to  have  scientific  knowledge 
of  farming  without  actually  owning  or  conducting 
farms,  they  are  getting  more  tolerant  of  scientific  ad- 
vice. For  that  reason  it  is  easier  now  than  it  was 
twenty  years  ago  for  an  editor  to  help  solve  farm 
problems. 

What  is  Farm  News? — Even  after  the  editor  has 
decided  that  he  ought  to  publish  farm  news,  he  is 
sometimes  puzzled  to  know  just  what  farm  news  is. 
It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  make  a  tabulation  and  say 
that  the  field  lies  wholly  within  the  bounds  he  has 
established.  Each  editor  must  survey  his  own  field 
and  decide  what,  in  his  particular  case,  is  real  farm 
new^. 

In  the  first  place  the  editor  will  have  to  make  a 
rural  survey.    If  he  expects  to  handle  the  news  intel- 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS  103 

Hgently  and  helpfully,  he  will  have  to  pay  personal 
visits  to  the  farmers  at  their  farms  during  the  various 
seasons  of  the  year's  work.  He  will  find  that  farm 
news  divides  roughly  into  two  classes:  (i)  Strictly 
professional  farm  news;  and  (2)  news  that  pertains 
indirectly  to  the  professional  side  of  the  farm  and 
deals  with  the  sociological  problems  of  the  farmer 
and  his  family.  This  division  may  be  designated  by 
the  general  term  ''country  Hfe."  The  editor  should 
know  at  the  close  of  his  rural  survey  just  how  every 
farm  stands  in  relation  to  the  following  points ;  he  will 
then  have  the  basis  for  constructive  presentation  of 
professional  farm  news. 

(i)  Live  stock.  Is  the  farmer  doing  what  he  can 
to  improve  his  stock  by  intelligent  breeding?  Is  he 
getting  blooded  stock,  or  is  he  satisfied  with  grade 
sires  and  grade  stock  in  general? 

(2)  Hay  and  fodder.  Is  the  farmer  conserving 
the  good  of  his  green  feed  by  the  use  of  a  silo,  or  is  he 
simply  putting  up  his  hay  in  the  open  and  feeding  that 
and  other  dry  feed  to  his  cows  all  winter? 

(3)  Grain  and  fertilizer.  Does  the  farmer  raise  his 
grain  to  sell  at  the  local  jelevator  or  is  he  getting  the 
most  possible  out  of  his  farnri  by  feeding  the  grain, 
marketing  the  fat  stock,  and  putting  back  into  the 
soil  the  fertility  it  has  lost  through  the  season's  yield  ? 
Has  he  tried  commercial  fertilizer  to  supplement  the 
natural  fertilizer,  or  to  test  out  certain  sections  of 
his  land? 

(4)  Dairying.  What  is  the  farmer  doing  about 
this  ?    Are  his  cows  tuberculin  tested  ?    Does  he  know 


I04  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

which  of  his  herd  are  money-makers  and  which  are  a 
loss  to  him?  Does  he  test  his  milk?  Are  his  cow- 
barns  sanitary,  the  water  supply  kept  clean,  and  the 
stanchions  easy? 

(5)  Drainage.  Are  there  spots  on  the  farm  where 
the  yield  of  crops  is  greatly  reduced  because  the 
ground  is  wet  ?  What  has  been  done  on  each  farm  in 
regard  to  permanent  tiling?  Is  the  cost  prohibitive 
for  the  farm  owner?  If  the  occupant  of  the  farm  is 
a  renter,  what  arguments  can  he  present  to  the  owner 
to  get  him  to  make  the  improvements? 

(6)  Labor-saving  appliances.  Is  the  farm  equipped 
with  gas  engine,  ensilage  cutter,  milking  machine, 
litter  carrier,  corn-sheller,  road  drag,  etc.  ?  Does  the 
farmer  have  a  motor  truck  or  motor  car? 

(7)  Cooperative  labor-savers.  Does  the  commu- 
nity cooperate  in  matters  where  one  man  could  not 
carry  the  load  alone  because  of  high  first-cost  and 
prohibitive  ''overhead"?  Are  there  cooperative  trac- 
tors, threshing  machines,  corn  shredders,  ensilage  cut- 
ters, etc.  ?    Is  cooperative  breeding  carried  on  ? 

(8)  Buildings.  Dairy,  hay  barn,  stables,  silo, 
chicken  and  hog  houses,  machinery  shed. 

(9)  New  crops.  What  attempts  are  being  made  to 
get  new  crops,  especially  large  yields,  or  special  varie- 
ties of  crops  that  are  fitted  to  climatic  and  soil  con- 
ditions of  the  neighborhood? 

(10)  Scientific  farming.  Milk  testing,  egg  and 
seed  testing,  soil  experiments,  spraying — potato  and 
fruit,  fruit  grafting,  fertiHzers. 

(11)  Market  gardening  and  fruit.     What  is  being 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS  105 

done  to  supply  the  towns  nearby  with  garden  products 
and  fruit?  Are  the  fruits  being  improved  by  proper 
grafting?  Are  the  trees  protected  by  spraying? 
What  shipping  facilities  are  there  for  getting  fruit  to 
the  markets?  Are  there  any  fruit  or  vegetable  can- 
neries in  the  community? 

The  above  outhne  does  not  pretend  to  cover  the 
field;  it  is  given  merely  as  a  suggestion.  There  is  no 
provision  in  this  outline  for  the  problems  of  country 
life;  they  will  be  considered  later.  Every  community 
will  present  its  own  special  problems,  but  the  country 
editor  ought  to  know  all  these  points  in  relation  to 
every  farm  in  the  neighborhood  if  he  is  to  do  work 
that  is  worth  while. 

Getting  Farm  News 

Interviews. — As  indicated  above,  the  first  step  In 
getting  farm  news  is  in  cultivating  the  acquaintance  of 
the  farmers.  This  will  not  only  yield  the  information 
desired,  but  will  also  tend  to  establish  friendly  per- 
sonal relations  between  the  editor  and  the  farmers. 
Each  farmer  is  likely  to  have  his  ^'strong  point,''  one 
special  thing  upon  which  he  is  best  informed  and  in 
which  he  is  most  interested.  By  adroit  questioning 
the  editor  can  usually  ascertain  what  it  is  and  can 
learn  many  things  that  would  be  of  general  interest 
to  his  readers.  Some  editors  have  found  that  these 
informal  interviews  when  published  have  an  actual 
value  to  other  farmers  in  the  neighborhood  and  are 
"circulation-getters''   because  of  the  good  will  they 


io6  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

create  among  the  farmers  who  have  been  interviewed. 
Such  an  interview  as  the  one  below  may  start  farm- 
ers thinking  about  care  of  machinery.     It  is  worth 
printing  in  any  country  paper.' 

"It  is  bad  business  paying  out  money 
for  good  farming  machinery  if  you 
don't  take  proper  care  of  it,"  said  J.  A. 
Barnes  the  other  day.  "Not  long  ago 
I  was  in  the  north  end  of  the  county 
and  I  saw  a  new  mowing  machine  stand- 
ing out  in  the  rain.  A  friend  told  me  it 
had  been  standing  there  for  three 
months,  and  the  sickle  bar  hadn't  even 
been  taken  out.  When  that  man  wants 
to  use  his  mower  again,  he'll  wonder 
why  it   doesn't   work  better." 

As  we  were  driving  home  from  the 
Barnes  farm,  we  took  special  notice, 
and  in  the  five  miles  counted  one 
mower,  five  corn  plows  with  the  shovels 
still  on,  two  stirring  plows,  one  seeder, 
two  binders,  and  a  manure  spreader 
standing  in  the  fields. 

Farmers  who  want  to  keep  their  ma- 
chinery in  good  condition,  would  do  well 
to  build  a  machine  shed  like  the  one 
at  the  Barnes  farm.  Mr.  Barnes  prac- 
tices what  he  preaches,  and  says  the 
shed  pays  for  itself  every  five  years. 

To  secure  such  farming  interviews  is  not  at  all  easy. 
The  editor  must  be  skillful  and  have  not  a  little  gen- 
eral farming  knowledge  in  order  to  put  the  kind  of 
questions  that  will  bring  out  something  really  valu- 
able to  his  farm  readers  in  general.  It  is  better  to 
print  nothing  at  all  than  to  print  something  obvious 
which  will  make  his  rural  readers  smile  at  the  editor's 
ignorafice.  And  it  may  make  them  a  bit  indignant 
to  feel  that  he  thinks  they  are  so  ignorant  about  farm- 
ing and  farm  conditions  as  to  be  benefited  by  the 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS  107 

trite  articles  he  publishes.  It  is  a  ''straight  and  nar- 
row'*  path,  surely,  that  the  editor  must  tread  who 
would  handle  agricultural  news  in  a  really  helpful 
manner.  One  would  not  try  to  conduct  a  paper  for 
lawyers  or  doctors  unless  one  understood  something 
of  law  or  medicine.  The  country  editor  who  tries 
to  conduct  a  paper  for  farmers  must  know  something 
of  the  practical  and  scientific  side  of  farming  or  he 
will  be  worse  than  a  failure.  And  even  if  the  editor 
is  well  equipped  with  all  this  specialized  knowledge,  he 
must  remember  that  he  cannot  sit  in  his  office  and 
tell  the  farmer  who  is  out  in  the  open  country  what 
to  do. 

B.  B.  Herbert,  editor  of  the  National  Printer-Jour- 
nalistj  a  man  widely  known  as  one  who  has  made 
effective  effort  for  the  betterment  of  farm  conditions 
and  for  the  closer  relation  of  the  rural  newspaper  and 
the  farm,  gives  his  idea  of  a  practical  method  of  get- 
ting farm  news. 

When  I  first  started  in  the  newspaper  business,  for  ^ 
three  days  or  more  each  week,  during  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  first  year,  I  traveled  by  sleigh  in  winter  and  car- 
riage in  summer  and  visited  every  country  home  to  se- 
cure subscribers ;  but  I  also  took  notes  of  improvements 
and  improved  stock  and  published  in  my  paper  all  the 
information  I  could  secure.  I  had  been  raised  as  a 
farmer  boy,  but  I  lacked  such  knowledge  as  is  given  in 
agricultural  schools.  .  .  .  Were  I  to  begin  again  the 
publishing  of  a  home,  country  paper,  I  would  make  an 
exact  chart  of  the  country  to  be  covered  by  my  paper. 
I  would  mark  thereon  the  position  of  every  farmhouse, 
of  every  school,  church,  and  highway.  I  would  know 
something  of  the  character  and  adaptability  of  every 
farm  and  what  every  farmer  was  doing  or  trying  to  do 


io8 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


in  the  way  of  cultivation,  conservation,  and  improvement. 
I  would  have  my  charts  mounted  and  indexed  and,  as 
far  as  practicable,  displayed  on  the  walls  of  my  office. 

County  Correspondents. — The  editor  can  get  good 
farm  news  from  his  correspondents  if  he  will  urge 
them  to  play  it  up  in  their  weekly  letters.  Most  of 
these  letters  will  come  from  farming  centers,  and 
there  is  good  chance  for  service  to  the  community 
through  the  weekly  reports  of  these  correspondents. 
Let  the  editor  tell  them  what  he  considers  important 
and  they  can  be  on  the  watch  for  it  each  week.  It 
will  be  surprising  to  see  the  amount  of  vital  material 
they  wall  uncover  in  the  course  of  the  year.  The 
material  is  all  there;  it  needs  only  the  editor's  vision 
and  the  correspondent's  pencil  to  be  transformed  into 
good  agricultural  copy. 

Items  such  as  the  two  following  show  what  country 
correspondents  can  do  in  the  matter  of  playing  up 
agricultural  news. 


John  Schwocho  raised  five  acres  of 
potatoes  last  year,  and  last  week  he 
sold  400  bushels  of  them  at  $1.55  a 
bushel.  John  says  that  just  paid  for  the 
new  touring  car  that  he^  bought  last 
year.  Next  year  he  is  going  to  try  to 
make  the  same  ground  earn  enough  to 
buy  gasoline  for  the  car. 


A.  C.  Thoreson  is  doing  official  test- 
ing this  week  and  by  present  indications 
his  cows  will  make  creditable  records. 
One  cow  has  reached  the  80  per  cent 
mark  in  her  test,  which  goes  to  show 
that  Holsteins  have  high  testers  as  well 
^s  Jerseys  and  Guernseys.     Mr,  Thore- 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS 


109 


son  started  in  pure-bred  Holsteins  about 
six  years  ago  and  he  is  developing  a 
fine,  profitable  herd  of  cattle.  He  ob- 
tained good  foundation  stock  and  is  im- 
proving his  herd  by  the  selection  of  the 
better  animals.  The  results  obtained  by 
Mr.  Thoreson  demonstrate  to  the  pub- 
lic the  improvement  which  may  be  se- 
cured through  selection  breeding  as  the 
final  result  of  official  testing. 


To  facilitate  the  gathering  of  farm  news  among 
correspondents  and  to  show  them  what  sort  of  thing 
he  wants,  the  editor  can  send  them  occasional  marked 
copies  of  the  agricultural  journals  he  gets  in  exchange. 
This  will  serve  three  purposes:  (i)  It  will  show 
them  how  farm  news  is  handled  and  will  teach  them 
something  of  the  technic  of  preparing  it  for  publica- 
tion; (2)  it  will  give  them  an  interest  in  farm  news 
as  such;  and  (3)  it  will  sharpen  their  perceptions  so 
that  they  will  know  farm  news  when  it  is  before  them, 
and  will  be  able  to  cover  the  field  more  thoroughly. 

Getting  Expert  Knowledge. — While  the  editor  is 
getting  what  he  can  from  the  farmers  and  the  rural 
correspondents,  he  can  at  the  same  time  be  getting 
expert  knowledge  and  advice  from  (i)  the  county 
agricultural  agent,  (2)  teachers  of  agriculture  in  the 
high  school,  (3)  farmers'  institutes,  (4)  "short 
courses,"  (5)  normal  schools,  (6)  the  state  univer- 
sity or  agricultural  college,  and  (7)  the  United  States 
Department  of  Agriculture. 

The  work  of  the  county  agent  and  of  the  teacher 
of  agriculture  in  the  local  high  school  will  be  of  great 
assistance  to  the  editor  because  it  is  applied  to  the 
district  where  the  paper  is  published  and  is  eminently 


no  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

practical.  Farmers'  institutes  and  short  courses, 
though  they  come  only  once  or  twice  a  year,  have 
direct  bearing  on  local  problems.  Also,  the  short 
course  of  a  week  for  country  editors  is  becoming  an 
annual  feature  of  some  agricultural  colleges.  Such  a 
course  greatly  stimulates  the  editor's  interest  in  farm 
news  and  promotes  better  cooperation  between  the 
editors  and  the  schools.  The  service  of  the  state  agri- 
cultural college,  agricultural  experiment  stations,  and 
the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture  is  also 
practical,  for  they  publish  bulletins  based  upon  the 
result  of  investigation  and  experiment  made  in  the 
state  where  the  paper  circulates.  This  knowledge  is 
authoritative  and  is  practical  for  use  in  the  commu- 
nity. These  sources  of  help  are  often  neglected  by 
the  editor  because  he  has  not  taken  pains  to  inform 
himself  sufficiently  to  know  good  material  when  he 
sees  it.  In  many  of  the  states,  too,  the  agricultural 
college  or  extension  division  of  the  state  university 
sends  out  weekly  press  bulletins  or  clip  sheets  to  the 
country  editors.  All  these  services  are  rendered  gratis 
and  the  editor  can  make  whatever  use  of  the  material 
he  desires.  The  news  is  always  fresh  and  authorita- 
tive and  is  a  source  of  much  good  if  properly  handled 
in  the  country  paper. 

Agricultural  Editor.— If  the  paper  is  large  enough 
to  warrant  the  additional  expense,  there  should  be  an 
agricultural  editor.  Just  how  large  the  paper  will  have 
to  be  to  support  this  expense  is  a  problem.  There  are 
some  papers  with  not  more  than  700  circulation  which 
have  agricultural  editors.    Usually  those  who  do  this 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS  in 

work  on  small  papers  are  young  men  who  have  not 
yet  completed  the  course  in  the  college  of  agriculture. 
They  have  taken  the  work  in  agricultural  journalism 
and  are  using  their  knowledge  to  make  the  money  nec- 
essary to  the  completion  of  their  college  work.  The 
training  they  have  had  in  scientific  methods  of  farm- 
ing enables  them  to  write  intelligently  of  such  things, 
and  the  work  in  agricultural  journalism  fits  them  to 
put  their  ideas  into  good  form  for  the  paper.  These 
young  men  come  to  their  work  with  great  enthusiasm 
and  are  a  valuable  asset  for  the  country  paper.  The 
fact  that  they  are  not  permanent  in  most  cases  is  not  a 
serious  drawback,  for  the  editor  can  usually  adopt  or 
adapt  their  methods  himself  after  watching  their  work 
for  a  summer  or  two.  In  many  counties  there  are 
agricultural  county  agents  with  whom  the  agricultural 
editor  can  work  to  great  advantage  and  thus  double 
his  own  effectiveness.  The  county  agent,  as  mentioned 
above,  is  a  valuable  source  of  information  to  the 
country  editor  who  is  feeling  his  way  toward  giving 
constructive  farming  news  to  his  readers. 

George  M.  Whitaker  of  the  United  States  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  has  the  following  advice  to  give 
to  editors  who  wish  to  present  something  worth  while 
to  their  farmer  readers : 

(i)  Be  constant  students;  (2)  tell  the  truth;  (3)  have 
your  influence  count  for  betterment;  (4)  remember  the 
department  of  agriculture  is  a  great  news  bureau;  (5) 
keep  track  of  its  activities  so  far  as  they  relate  to  mat- 
ters both  of  general  news  value  and  of  more  direct  local 
interest;  (6)  use  liberally  what  this  national  news  agency 
offers  you. 


112 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


The  Use  of  Exchanges. — The  farming  exchanges 
which  come  to  the  office  should  be  read  carefully  in- 
stead of  being  tossed  aside  and  sold  for  old  paper. 
The  editor's  exchanges  are  to  him  what  medical  jour- 
nals are  to  the  physician;  law  journals  to  the  lawyer. 
In  the  farm  journals  that  come  to  his  table  he  can 
find  many  interesting  and  suggestive  things  that  will 
bear  being  told  to  his  readers.  To  obtain  the  best 
results,  the  editor  should  not  use  these  papers  as  clip 
sheets,  but  should  present  the  material  together  with 
his  own  reaction  upon  it  and  with  its  applicability  to 
local  conditions  emphasized.  Clipped  articles,  how- 
ever excellent,  are  not  so  likely  to  be  carefully  read 
as  something  the  editor  writes  himself.  His  function 
is  like  that  of  the  electric  transformer:  He  takes  the 
high  voltage  material  from  the  farm  journals  and 
''steps  it  down"  for  local  use.    For  example : 


The  original. 


As  i  t  %w  a  s  pub- 
lished in  the  coun- 
try paper. 


The  Chengwatana  Farmers'  Club  of 
Pine  county,  Minn.,  appointed  a  com- 
mittee recently  to  determine  what  can 
be  done  in  that  community  toward  or- 
ganizing a  potato  growers'  association. 
It  is  the  wish  of  the  club  to  promote  the 
standardization  and  marketing  of  pota- 
toes direct  from  the  farm.  This  is  a 
good  move  by  the  club  and  should  re- 
sult in  splendid  returns.  There  are 
eight  standard  varieties  of  potatoes  rec- 
ommended for  Minnesota,  and  club 
members  can  do  much  to  improve  the 
potato  rnarket  by  sticking  to  these  stand- 
ard varieties. 

A  farmers'  club  in  Pine  county, 
Minnesota,  is  trying  to  organize  a  po- 
tato growers'  association  for  the  pur- 
pose of  standardizing  the  crop  and  mar- 
keting it  direct  from  the  farm.     There 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS 


113 


are  eight  standard  varieties  of  potatoes 
recommended  as  suitable  for  the  soil 
and  climatic  conditions  of  Minnesota. 

There  is  every  reason  why  potato 
growers  hereabouts  should  have  a  simi- 
lar organization.  The  Farmers'  Co- 
operative Company,  already  handling  so 
effectively  the  various  products  of  the 
farm,  could  market  the  crop.  That  prob- 
lem is  already  solved. 

The  matter  of  finding  potatoes  that 
are  especially  suited  to  this  part  of  the 
country  can  easily  be  arranged.  The 
editor  has  written  to  the  State  College 
and  to  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture  for  information;  as  soon 
as  it  arrives,  it  will  be  published  in  the 
paper.  Let's  have  a  potato  growers' 
association ! 


'  In  the  other  country  weekHes  that  come  to  his  desk 
the  editor  can  find  items  of  interest  concerning  agri- 
culture in  other  parts  of  the  state,  and  suggestive 
ways  of  treating  particular  kinds  of  farm  stories. 
This  entails  careful  study,  but  it  also  brings  gratifying 
results. 

Country  Life 

Farm  News  in  Community  Welfare  Work. — The 

second  main  division  of  farm  news,  that  concerned 
with  the  problems  of\country  life,  offers  the  editor  an 
excellent  chance  to  bring  about  better  conditions  of^ 
living  among  farmers  and  among  the  people  of  the 
town  as  well.  Better  housing  conditions,  improved 
methods  of  preparing  food,  sanitary  disposal  of  sew- 
age, better  lighting  systems,  running  water  in  the 
houses,  improved  methods  of  doing  the  work  of  the 
farm,  whether  in  the  field  or  in  the  kitchen,  reduction 


114  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

of  waste,  the  problem  of  entertainment,  the  problems 
of  rural  church  and  school,  are  all  within  the  province 
of  the  country  weekly. 

These  are  subjects  which  must  be  handled  dis- 
creetly and  cautiously.  No  man  likes  to  be  told  that 
he  is  living  in  a  house  that  is  scarcely  better  than  a 
stable — especially  if  it  is  true.  The  farmer  does  not 
like  to  be  reminded  publicly  that  most  of  the  money 
on  the  place  goes  for  improvements  by  which  he  can 
make  his  work  more  pleasant  and  more  effective, 
while  his  wife  has  to  struggle  along  with  inconven- 
iences just  as  her  mother  did  before  her.  All  these 
subjects  given  above  obviously  cannot  be  treated  in 
the  gross.  The  editor  must  keep  working  at  the  prob- 
lems of  country  life  all  the  time  and  must  deal  with 
some  of  them  very  delicately  and  subtly.  He  must 
introduce  variety  into  his  method,  for  if  he  hammers 
on  the  same  thing  in  the  same  way  week  after  week, 
there  will  bc^  apathy  among  his  readers. 

Probably  the  most  effective  aid  the  editor  can  have 
in  these  matters  is  a  good  community  club  aided  by 
various  other  clubs  which  have  community  interest 
for  a  "side  issue/'  such  as  many  literary  and  study 
clubs  which  often  take  over  practical  things  in  the 
betterment  of  home  and  community  conditions.  The 
community  club,  however,  is  the  proper  agency  to  take 
the  lead  and  to  correlate  the  activities  of  other  organi- 
zations^. If  such  a  club  is  in  active  operation,  it  will 
enforce  the  work  of  the  editor  and  make  it  possible 
for  him  to  do  a  great  deal  more  good  than  he  could 
otherwise  accomplish.    Community  clubs  usually  con- 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS  115 

sist  both  of  men  and  of  women,  and  have  for  their 
purposes  study,  both  practical  and  cultural,  entertain- 
ment, and  concerted  work  for  the  upbuilding  of  the 
community.  Some  of  the  practical  results  achieved  by 
such  clubs  now  in  operation  include  the  following: 

Better  roads  (community  dragging  after  rains). 

Better  schools  (consolidation  of  rural  schools). 

Better  social  conditions  (picnics,  lecture  courses,  com- 
munity band  and  orchestra,  home  dramatics,  so- 
cial center). 

Better  food  (interest  in  state  college  bulletins,  in 
women's  short  courses,  community  cook  book). 

Better  health  (state  bulletins  dealing  with  typhoid 
fever,  milk  inspection,  water  supply,  ice,  hygiene 
of  the  sleeping  room,  sanitary  disposal  of  sewage, 
house  ventilation,  etc.). 

Better  homes  (cultivation  of  good  taste  in  household 
furnishing  and  decoration  through  state  college 
bulletins,  short  courses,  women's  magazines  taken 
by  the  clubs ;  interest  in  sanitation  and  labor  sav- 
ing devices). 

Better  reading  (community  library,  discussion  of  mat- 
ter in  magazines,  loans  from  the  state  library 
commission). 

Better  cooperation  (marketing  products;  buying  coal, 
flour,  feed,  seed;  care  of  cemetery;  community 
laundry;  community  ice  house;  union  of  feeble 
churches ;  cooperative  creamery,  warehouses,  and 
elevators;  cooperative  threshing  and  shredding 
outfits,  tractors,  etc.;  cooperative  breeding). 


ii6  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

If  such  a  community  club  does  not  exist  in  his  ter- 
ritory, the  editor  should  do  his  best  to  have  one  or- 
ganized. There  is  nothing  else  that  can  help  the  com- 
munity so  much  and  nothing  else  that  can  help  the 
editor  so  thoroughly  in  his  battle  for  community  bet- 
terment. It  will  be  a  constant  source  of  live  farm 
news  and  a  sure  medium  of  getting  the  editor's  ideas 
discussed  and,  if  they  are  practical,  acted  upon. 

Ready-Print  Farm  News. — Some  editors  depend 
wholly  upon  the  ''patent  inside''  of  their  papers  to 
furnish  the  farm  news,  and  there  is  much  in  the  pat- 
ent that  is  helpful  and  suggestive.  But  there  are  at 
least  two  reasons  why  it  is  unwise  to  leave  this  mat- 
ter to  the  ready-print.  ( i )  The  ready-print  does  not 
carry  so  much  weight  as  the  home  print  part  of  the 
paper.  News  that  has  its  origin  in  the  community 
and  is  set  up  in  the  office  is  what  the  readers  want  to 
read.  (2)  Matter  prepared  in  the  office  and  based  on 
local  information,  bulletins  from  the  state  college  or 
state  exchanges  is  likely  to  be  more  practical  for  the 
particular  section  for  which  it  is  intended  than  any 
patent  could  be — even  though  a  different  one  is  pre- 
pared for  each  state.  If  the  matter  suggested  by  the 
bulletins  needs  any  amplifications,  the  editor  can  easily 
get  them  by  writing  to  the  state  college  or  the  de- 
partment of  agriculture.  Such  material  is  always  au- 
thoritative and  helpful. 

A  Type  of  Service. — The  intelligent  editor  can  ren- 
der great  service  to  his  community  if  he  will  take 
advantage  of  all  his  opportunities.  The  great  impetus 
and  wonderful  progress  toward  good  roads  in  the  past 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS  117 

twenty  years  has  been  due  in  large  part  to  the  agita- 
tion of  the  press.  The  1909  survey  of  the  United 
States  Department  of  Agriculture  showed  that  only 
two  per  cent  of  the  highways  in  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania  were  hard-surfaced.  In 
191 4  the  survey  showed  that  in  these  states  24  per 
cent  of  the  roads  had  a  permanent  hard  surface. 
What  has  been  going  on  in  these  three  states  has  been 
more  or  less  closely  approximated  in  many  other 
states. 

In  every  instance  the  country  paper  has  been  be- 
hind the  movement  for  good  roads.  This  has  been  of 
incalculable  benefit  to  the  farmer  and  to  the  rural 
group  generally.  The  farmer's  wife  and  daughters 
are  not  shut  up  in  semi-isolation  during  the  muddy  • 
spring  months  as  they  used  to  be.  The  farmer  can 
get  his  produce  to  market  more  easily  than  he  could 
even  five  years  ago.  The  work  of  the  country  editor 
in  helping  to  bring  about  good  roads  agitation  is  only 
typical  of  many  sorts  of  service  he  can  render  not 
only  to  the  farmer  but  to  the  whole  community.  It 
is  a  creative,  constructive  sort  of  work  and  belongs 
to  the  function  of  the  editor  if  he  is  to  live  up  to 
the  measure  of  his  possibilities.  Constructive  work 
for  the  betterment  of  the  community  pays  in  every 
way,  and  every  bit  of  service  the  editor  can  render  to 
the  farmer  is  constructive  community  work. 

Farm  News  as  a  Business  Investment. — There  is 
a  business  side  to  all  this  service  which  the  editor 
should  render.    The  farmer  who  feels  that  the  editor 


ii8  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

is  interested  in  him  and  who  is  helped  by  the  paper 
will  be  a  satisfied  subscriber.  A  great  many  circula- 
tion and  back-subscription  problems  will  be  solved  by 
farm  news  properly  written.  Auction  bills,  salebills, 
sale  advertising  in  the  paper,  stationery,  and  want  ads 
are  all  sources  of  income  to  the  printer-publisher,  and 
if  he  has  a  good  clientele  among  the  farmers  he  will 
get  many  dollars'  additional  income  each  year.  Again, 
if  he  has  a  good  circulation  among  a  prosperous  lot 
of  farmers,  his  chances  for  national  advertising  are 
vastly  increased.  More  and  more  the  concerns  which 
sell  their  products  nationally  by  means  of  publicity  are 
trying  to  get  their  advertising  directly  to  the  people 
who  do  the  buying.  The  farmer  has  buying  power, 
and  any  medium  which  gets  to  him  directly  and  has 
the  prestige  that  comes  from  long  and  favorable  ac- 
quaintance of  its  readers  is  a  valuable  advertising 
medium. 

The  following  figures  taken  from  the  Advertising 
News  of  October  2y,  1916,  are  suggestive: 

Thirty-one  thousand  farmers  and  their  wives  from  the 
state  of  Iowa  spent  last  winter  in  California,  and  from 
the  same  state  13,500  more  went  to  Florida  for  the  win- 
ter. .  .  .  During  a  recent  year  the  farmers  of  the  United 
States  bought,  in  addition  to  the  many  million  dollars' 
worth  of  foodstuffs,  clothing,  furniture,  farm  machinery, 
and  building  materials,  $90,000,000  worth  of  automobiles  ; 
$40,000,000  worth  of  player-pianos  and  organs;  $11,000,- 
000  worth  of  phonographs;  $5,000,000  worth  of  type- 
writers; ^1,000,000  worth  of  furnaces;  $500,000  worth 
of  porcelain  bathtubs;  $500,000  worth  of  good  pictures; 
$275,000  worth  of  good  books;  and  $100,000  worth  of 
sheet  music. 


AGRICULTURAL  NEWS  119 

It  is  obvious  that  the  country  editor's  service  to  the 
farmer  is  one  that  need  not  go  unrewarded  financially. 
Both  directly  and  indirectly  the  farmer  is  a  source  of 
income  to  the  country  paper,  and  because  of  that  fact, 
as  well  as  because  he  is  at  the  foundation  of  organ- 
ized society,  the  farmer  deserves  to  be  well  treated  by 
the  rural  press. 

Summary. — B.  B.  Herbert,  editor  of  the  National 
Printer-Journalist,  and  for  many  years  a  successful 
country  editor  in  Minnesota,  said: 

It  is  the  newspaper  man's  opportunity  to  inform,  to 
encourage,  to  inspire  and  point  out  the  way.  Are  the 
waste  places  to  be  made  fruitful,  barren  lands  to  be  re- 
claimed or  re-forested,  exhausted  fields  to  be  renewed? 
It  is  within  the  newspaper  man's  province  to  bring  to  the 
knowledge  of  his  people  as  the  most  important,  interest- 
ing, and  profitable  news  that  can  be  gathered  and  printed, 
all  the  opportunities,  the  possibilities,  and  methods  of 
*'making  the  wilderness  to  bring  forth  and  bud  that  it 
may  give  seed  to  the  sower  and  bread  to  the  eater";  of 
covering  the  home  hillsides  with  useful  shrubbery  or 
trees;  of  bringing  back  fertility  to  the  soil;  and  of  edi- 
torially enforcing  the  news  or  knowledge  so  as  to  cause 
action  and  bring  results. 

Without  considering  the  wants  that  everywhere  exist, 
it  is  the  newspaper  man's  opportunity  all  the  time  to 
bring  to  his  readers  the  news  of  improved  stock,  whether 
of  sheep,  swine,  neat  cattle,  or  horses ;  and  how  to  secure 
and  to  develop  the  same,  as  well  as  poultry,  grasses, 
grain,  and  fruit;  of  the  needs,  methods,  and  benefits  of 
better  cultivation,  or  better  buildings  and  their  architec- 
ture or  construction;  of  better  sanitation;  of  the  eco- 
nomic and  social,  if  not  even  educational,  value  of  suit- 
able highways,  and  how  to  make  and  secure  them;  of  all 
the  improvements  in  manufactures,  their  economy  and 
uses,  and  how  to  make  or  procure  them;  the  value  of 


I20  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

practical  and  improved  educational  facilities,  and  of  do- 
mestic arts,  industrial  conservation,  and  healthful  human 
development,  physically,  mentally,  and  morally,  as  de- 
sirable for  useful  citizens  of  the  Republic.  In  a  word, 
everything  that  touches  or  concerns  human  well-being 
in  all  things — security,  upbuilding,  or  happiness — affords 
news  or  materials  and  opportunity  for  the  newspaper 
publisher  in  a  work  of  service  that  is  unlimited  and  tends 
toward  a  permanent  usefulness  and  success  that  can 
only  be  measured  by  its  broadening  extent  and  worthi- 


SUGGESTIONS 

"Play  up''  farm  news. 

Train  your  correspondents  to  get  farm  news. 

Use  the  community  club  if  you  have  one. 

Make  rural  surveys. 

Make  friends  of  your  rural  readers. 

Publish  an  interview  with  a  farmer  now  and  then. 

Read  your  exchanges  for  suggestions-  for  handling 
farm  news. 

Use  the  facilities  offered  by  the  State  College  and 
the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture. 

Remember  that  farming  is  "big  business.'' 

Conduct  a  service  paper  as  well  as  a  newspaper. 

Enlist  the  help  of  the  county  agent  if  there  is  one 
in  your  county. 

If  you  want  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  town,  begin 
at  the  farm. 

*  Delivered  before  Country  Life  Congress  in  Madison,  Wiscon- 
sin, February  15,  191 1. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  EDITOR 

Although  the  country  weekly  is  often  a  "one-man" 
business  in  which  the  editor  has  to  act  as  reporter, 
business  and  advertising  manager,  compositor,  make- 
up and  pressman,  his  editorial  function  is  quite  dis- 
tinct from  these  other  more  or  less  technical  duties. 
When  he  is  collecting  and  writing  news,  he  is  plain 
John  Brown,  and  his  views  expressed  on  the  street 
are  those  of  a  private  citizen ;  a  citizen  who,  perhaps, 
has  had  a  better  chance  than  most  of  his  townsmen 
to  get  outside  views  and  to  form  therefrom  a  broader 
opinion,  but  still  a  private  citizen.  But  when  he  ex- 
presses these  views  in  writing,  and  that  written  ex- 
pression has  been  set  into  type  and  printed,  some- 
thing about  the  psychology  of  the  printed  page  trans- 
mutes the  expression  of  the  editor's  ideas  into  a  super- 
personal  view.  It  is  no  longer  *'John  Brown-  thinks 
this,"  but  '*the  County  Enterprise  says  this  is  so." 
Because  of  this  tendency  on  the  part  of  his  readers, 
the  country  editor  is  potentially  a  person  of  great  in- 
fluence in  the  community  where  his  paper  circulates. 
It  may  be  that  his  subscribers  are  so  few  that  one 
could  "walk  out  of  the  circulation"  in  an  hour;  the 
principle  remains  the  same.     The  mere  fact  that  one 

121 


X 


122  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

man  can  determine  and  dictate  the  policy  of  the  lOcal 
paper,  that  he  has  the  most  powerful  engine  of  pub- 
licity in  the  whole  community,  that  he  has  behind  him 
the  curious  psychological  phenomenon  which  gives 
his  printed  words  more  force  than  the  spoken  word, 
however  eloquent,  can  attain,  means  that  there  are 
great  potentialities  for  power  in  the  editor's  position. 
There  are  many  editors  who  do  not  use  this  power 
nor  do  anything  to  develop  it,  and  so  it  becomes  atro- 
phied through  disuse  or  remains  rudimentary  through 
never  being  exercised.  But  the  germ  is  there  and 
may  be  developed  to  a  tremendous  extent. 

Critics  of  the  country  newspaper  are  wont  to  smile 
at  a  mention  of  the  editor's  ''power.''  They  do  so  ill- 
advisedly.  Let  us  suppose  that  a  country  weekly  has 
a  circulation  of  only  800.  Suppose,  too,  that  the  edi- 
tor influences  only  one  per  cent  of  his  subscribers. 
That  seems  a  very  slight  and  negligible  influence.  But 
there  are  eight  persons  who  have  been  moved  to  some 
sort  of  action  or  belief  by  what  the  editor  has  written. 
The  rest  of  his  readers  may  not  at  all  agree  with  him, 
but  these  dissenters  usually  have  no  way  of  making 
their  opinion  known  except  by  the  spoken  word  in 
restricted  circles.  It  follows  that  opposition  to  the 
views  expressed  by  the  editor  will  almost  always  lack 
organization  and  effectiveness.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  eight  who  believe  with  the  editor  are  talking  about 
the  thing  that  is  of  interest,  and  their  views,  as  ex- 
pressed in  their  various  circles,  are  being  reenforced 
by  the  printed  views  of  the  editor  in  the  succeeding 
issues  of  the  paper.     They  are  likely  to  be  at  one  in 


THE  EDITOR  123 

their  ideas;  the  dissenters  are  almost  sure  to  lack 
unity  of  ideas  and  purpose.  Public  opinion  often 
grows  from  a  small  center  like  this  just  as  circles 
radiate  from  the  place  where  a  stone  is  thrown  into 
a  pool  of  water.  And,  as  in  the  case  of  the  water 
circles,  these  various  circles  of  influence  will  widen 
and  merge  until  they  cover  an  immense  surface.  It 
is  the  scriptural  idea  of  a  little  leaven  leavening  the 
whole  lump. 

The  case  cited  above  is,  of  course,  an  extreme  one, 
for  there  is  hardly  a  paper  published  anywhere  which 
does  not  have  a  steady  influence  with  more  than  eight 
people.  But  even  this  small  number  constitutes  a  cen- 
ter of  influence  that  may  be  vital  and  significant  in 
ultimate  results. 

The  Personality  of  the  Editor. — The  editor  must 
put  something  of  himself  into  his  paper  if  he  is  to 
make  it  go.  It  takes  good  news,  well  written  and 
presented  with  mechanical  excellence,  to  make  a  good 
paper;  but  it  takes  more  than  this.  The  news  policy 
of  the  weekly  may  be  all  that  the  community  could 
wish,  and  all  that  an  enlightened  and  nonpartisan 
public  opinion  could  suggest,  and  yet  the  paper  itself 
may  fail  to  carry  the  weight  it  should  in  the  com- 
munity. 

We  take  city  papers  for  what  they  contain  that  we 
wish  to  have.  We  do  not  know  who  the  editors  are, 
and  we  are  usually  not  at  all  concerned  in  ferreting 
out  the  source  of  the  articles  we  read,  no  matter  how 
much  they  may  have  pleased  us.  Our  relation  to  the 
city  paper  is  impersonal.     But  in  the  country  it  is 


124  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

different.  Here  the  personal  element  plays  an  impor- 
tant part  in  the  success  of  the  newspaper.  Our  atti- 
tude toward  the  editor  is  just  the  same  as  it  is  toward 
any  other  business  man  who  has  a  manufactured  prod- 
uct to  sell  us :  We  are  looking  for  a  good  bargain  but, 
other  things  being  at  all  equal,  we  prefer  to  buy 
where  we  are  treated  kindly  and  in  a  friendly  man- 
ner. The  qualities  which  make  a  paper  respected  are 
not  necessarily  those  that  make  it  popular,  for  we  are 
not  coldly  judicial  in  our  regard  of  the  home  paper. 
There  are  certain  qualities  which  the  editor  must  put 
into  his  paper  to  make  it  respected ;  and  there  are  cer- 
tain personal  attributes  of  his  own  that  help  to  make 
his  paper  popular. 

Qualities  that  Make  for  Respect. — In  order  that 
his  paper  may  win  the  respect  of  its  readers,  the  editor 
must  have  very  obviously  certain  qualities  which  will 
pass  over  into  his  paper  and  be  evident  there. 

(i)  He  must  be  honest,  both  with  himself  and 
with  the  public.  In  his  treatment  of  the  news,  in  his 
relations  with  his  fellow  men,  both  in  business  and  in 
the  ordinary  casual  contacts  of  life,  his  honesty  must 
be  above  question.  If  an  editor  can  get  such  a  repu- 
tation for  honesty  that  his  readers  will  say :  'That's 
so  because  I  saw  it  in  the  News'"  he  has  a  valuable 
asset  that  will  go  far  toward  making  his  paper  an  in- 
fluence in  the  community. 

(2)  He  must  be  individual  and  independent.  The 
man  who  has  no  solidly  fixed  ideas  of  his  own  is 
plainly  out  of  his  sphere  in  attempting  to  conduct  a 
paper.    He  should  have  his  own  ideas  and  not  hesitate 


[ 


THE  EDITOR  125 


to  express  them;  but  these  opinions  should  never  be 
formed  hastily  and  should  be  built  upon  what  seems 
to  him  a  logical  basis.  If  he  is  honest  and  individual, 
his  opinion  will  be  respected  even  though  it  cannot 
be  accepted  by  his  readers. 

(3)  He  must  be  broad-minded.  No  matter  how 
honest  or  how  individual  and  independent  he  may  be, 
the  editor  must  be  broad-minded  if  he  is  to  wield  the 
influence  he  should.  A  reputation  for  intolerance  and 
bigotry  will  soon  impair  or  destroy  the  influence  of 
any  man.  He  may  hold  his  own  views  very  definitely 
and  very  tenaciously,  but  he  must  not  be  unwilling  to 
admit  that  other  men  may  be  quite  as  honest  in  hold- 
ing views  exactly  opposite. 

(4)  All  this  means  that  he  must  be  just.  He 
should  not  abuse  his  position  as  master  of  publicity  in 
the  town  by  ignoring  or  ridiculing  the  opinions  of 
others.  His  news  columns,  of  course,  should  be  free 
from  all  partisan  expression  of  opinion,  and  if  he 
writes  editorials,  he  should  be  very  sure  that  no  mat- 
ter how  forcefully  he  may  write  there  is  no  open  deri- 
sion of  others  in  his  articles.  No  man  ever  went  far 
by  trying  to  force  his  opinions  down  the  throats  of  his 
neighbors.  A  reputation  for  justice  will  go  a  long 
way  toward  establishing  an  editor's  position  in  the 
community  where  his  paper  circulates. 

(5)  He  must  be  well  informed.  The  editor  who 
gets  the  reputation  of  knowing  what  he  is  writing 
about  will  find  many  of  the  rough  spots  in  his  path 
smoothed  out  in  advance.  Editors  have  a  better 
chance  than  anyone  else  in  the  community  to  know 


126  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

what  is  being  done  in  the  world,  and  how  It  is  being 
done.  A  careful  study  of  the  exchanges  as  they  come 
in  from  all  parts  of  the  state  and  from  other  states 
A^ill  keep  the  editor  better  informed  than  most  of  his 
readers  can  hope  to  be.  It  is  his  privilege  and  his 
duty  to  give  his  public  the  benefit  of  his  wider  knowl- 
edge of  afifairs.  This  takes  study  and  hard  work,  but 
the  result  is  worth  it.  A  pretense  of  knowledge  may 
be  accepted  for  a  while,  but  it  is  beneath  contempt  and 
is  a  device  of  the  dishonest  and  the  inept.  If  a  man 
is  detected  in  it,  his  usefulness  is  practically  destroyed. 

(6)  The  editor  must  be  public-spirited.  These  are 
the  days  of  the  ''booster.''  We  may  not  agree  with 
all  the  methods  of  the  welfare-promoter,  but  we  must 
agree  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  one  of  us  to  do 
what  he  can  to  make  his  home  community  a  better 
place  in  which  to  live.  There  are  numberless  avenues 
of  service  for  everyone,  but  the  editor  is  in  a  position 
to  do  more  for  public  movements  than  any  other  man. 
If  he  is  always  on  the  side  of  public  progress  and  im- 
provement, he  will  find  that  it  is  a  good  thing  for  his 
paper. 

Qualities  that  Make  for  Popularity. — It  seems 
that  the  possession  of  such  qualities  as  mentioned 
above  ought  to  insure  for  any  paper  unquestioned 
popularity.  If  we  were  all  judicial  in  temperament, 
we  should  judge  entirely  by  such  qualities  as  honesty, 
justice,  independence,  public  spirit,  and  so  on.  But 
we  aren-uled  in  the  specific  instance  by  the  personal. 
We  look  upon  the  paper  as  the  lengthened  shadow  of 
the  editor  him3elf  and  demand  that  he  have  certain 


THE  EDITOR  127 

qualities  which  we  admire;  certain  social  lubricants 
which  make  him  an  easy  and  frictionless  member  of 
the  society  about  him.  There  is  no  abstract  justice  in 
this,  but  there  is  excellent  common  sense.  We  have  to 
live  in  the  world  and,  other  things  being  equal,  he  is 
the  most  agreeable  citizen  who  has  mastered  most 
completely  the  art  of  living  with  his  fellow  men. . 

It  is  necessary  for  the  wholly  successful  editor  to 
have  elements  of  personal  popularity  if  he  would  make 
the  most  of  the  possibilities  before  him. 

(i)  He  should  be  friendly.  The  man  who  meets 
us  with  a  smile  and  with  a  friendly  word  is  likely  to 
keep  our  good  will  and  our  subscription  longer  than  a 
sour- faced  person,  however  excellent.  This  friendli- 
ness must  not  be  confined  to  casual  meetings  but  must 
extend  to  public  gatherings.  The  editor  must  be  a 
good  ''mixer."  Mingling  with  people  is  an  art,  and  if 
the  editor  does  not  have  it  naturally,  he  should  de- 
velop it  as  soon  as  possible. 

(2)  He  must  be  neat.  The  appearance  of  any  man 
is  a  vital  asset  in  his  success.  It  is  very  easy  around  a 
printing  office  for  one  to  become  inked  and  generally 
soiled.  The  editor  should  be  very  careful  to  remove 
all  signs  of  ink  and  grease  from  his  clothes  and  per- 
son as  soon  as  he  finishes  a  piece  of  ''dirty"  work.  In 
the  matter  of  clothes,  he  should  not  be  a  fop  or  dandy; 
no  man  should  be  that.  But  he  should  be  dressed 
neatly  and  appropriately  just  as  any  other  business 
man  should  be.  It  will  be  good  for  his  self-respect 
and  will  promote  the  respect  of  other  people  for  him. 

(3)  He  must  be  even-tempered.    Losing  one's  tern- 


128  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

per  is  a  relief  at  times  but  it  is  often  a  costly  one. 
There  is  no  need  for  the  editor  to  be  tamely  compliant, 
but  being  good-natured  in  his  daily  business  is  a  good 
way  to  make  friends. 

(4)  He  must  be  original.  Cleverness  of  the  editor 
may  easily  be  overdone  unless  it  is  spontaneous. 
Forced  pleasantry  is  always  a  dry  dish  to  swallow. 
Reputation  for  perpetual  cleverness,  too,  is  often  a 
hindrance  rather  than  a  help;  but  the  editor  should 
have  enough  originality  to  spice  his  conversation  and 
put  variety  into  his  columns.  A  little  spice  with  the 
news  or  the  comment  helps  to  make  it  go.  Many  pa- 
pers owe  their  chief  popularity  to  the  fact  that  the  edi- 
tor each  week  says  something  to  make  the  readers 
laugh  and  to  make  them  think. 

Other  Qualifications. — The  young  man  who  is 
about  to  enter  the  country  field  should  examine  him- 
self honestly  to  see  whether  he  has  the  right  attitude 
toward  the  work  in  which  he  is  going  to  engage. 
Aside  from  his  personal  qualities  and  his  education, 
there  are  other  qualifications  that  should  be  met. 

( I )  He  should  feel  pride  in  his  profession.  News- 
paper editing  is  a  profession  of  which  no  man  need 
be  ashamed,  no  matter  how  small  his  paper  may  be. 
If  it  is  covering  the  news  field  and  doing  all  that  is 
possible  to  make  the  community  a  better  place  in  which 
to  live,  the  country  weekly  is  a  dignified  newspaper 
and  one  that  does  not  need  to  ask  for  ''support.''  No 
editor  sliould  plead  with  his  public  to  be  taken  care 
of.  The  world  does  not  owe  him  a  living.  The  law- 
yer, the  doctor,  the  merchant,  has  as  much  right  to  ask 


THE  EDITOR  129 

this  as  the  editor.  He  is  a  manufacturer;  let  him 
make  and  sell  his  product  in  the  open  market  with  a 
feeling  of  pride  in  a  piece  of  work  well  and  honestly 
done,  whether  it  be  an  especially  good  issue  of  the 
newspaper  or  an  artistic  piece  of  job  work  from  the 
back  office. 

(2)  He  should  cultivate  a  professional  spirit.  He 
should  be  a  member  of  the  county,  district,  and  state 
editorial  associations ;  he  should  subscribe  for  and  read 
his  technical  and  professional  papers.  Meeting  with 
others  of  his  craft  and  profession  at  editorial  meet- 
ings and  reading  about  methods  used  in  other  shops 
will  promote  a  unity  of  spirit  and  a  professional  con- 
sciousness which  will  be  of  benefit  to  him  in  many 
ways. 

(3)  He  should  remember  that  he  is  an  American 
business  man  and  should  cultivate  the  initiative  which 
the  term  implies.  Business  conditions  in  his  own  town 
should  be  studied  from  every  angle.  Local  advertis- 
ing clubs  and  other  commercial  organizations  should 
be  fostered  and  aided  in  every  possible  way.  In  no 
other  way  can  the  editor  so  closely  identify  himself 
with  the  business  life  of  the  town  and  community. 
Better  business  for  the  merchants  means  better  busi- 
ness for  the  editor  and  a  better  town  for  all  to  live  in. 

Training  and  Equipment  of  the  Editor. — The 
question  of  the  training  and  equipment  of  the  coun- 
try editor  is  one  upon- which  there  is  much  division. 
The  old  idea  that  the  only  education  the  country  editor 
needed  was  the  technical  instruction  he  received  in 
learning  the  printer's  trade  is  pretty  well  exploded 


I30  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

now.  The  old  farmer  in  Will  Carleton's  poem  who 
took  his  boy  to  the  editor  illustrates  the  old  point  of 
view.  The  father  could  not  discover  that  the  boy 
was  good  for  anything  in  particular  so  he  asked  the 
editor  to  make  "an  editor  outen  of  him.''  Perhaps  the 
old  type  of  country  newspaper  man  was  himself  to 
blame  for  an  opinion  of  this  sort.  Certainly  too  many 
of  them  held  the  belief  that  it  was  necessary  for  them 
to  know  only  the  meager  principles  of  typesetting  and 
printing  that  they  had  learned  in  some  little  country 
office. 

Conditions  today  are  greatly  changed  from  what 
they  were  even  twenty-five  years  ago.  To  fulfill  his 
function  perfectly,  the  editor  should  be  the  director 
of  the  progressive  thought  of  the  community.  This 
means  that  he  will  have  to  be  a  student  in  the  broad- 
est sense  of  the  word.  He  may  or  he  may  not  have 
had  the  advantage  of  a  college  training.  His  formal 
education,  perhaps,  does  not  so  much  matter.  But  he 
must  be  a  student  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  world 
about  him.  He  must  be  able  to  detect  tendencies  and 
to  forecast  their  probable  result  in  the  life  of  his  own 
community.  He  must  be  able  to  see  all  the  ways  in 
which  he  can  help  to  make  the  life  of  his  own  neigh- 
borhood fuller,  better,  and  saner.  He  must  be  a  stu- 
dent of  human  nature,  which  means  that  he  must  know 
political  economy,  sociology,  and  psychology.  This 
does  not  imply  that  he  must  buy  textbooks  on  these 
subjects* and  read  them  painstakingly — although  that 
might  be  a  good  thing  for  him  to  do.  It  means  infi- 
nitely more  than  that.    It  means  that  if  he  is  to  be  a 


THE  EDITOR  131 

real  student  of  human  nature,  he  must  understand  the 
application  of  these  sciences  to  the  people  and  the  life 
about  him.  Applied  sociology  and  psychology  are  of 
vital  importance  to  the  community.  Happy  the  editor 
who  is  a  keen  observer  and  who  can  apply  the  abstract 
data  of  these  subjects  to  the  politics,  economics,  and 
general  welfare  of  his  community! 

Other  things  being  equal,  the  editor  who  is  a  student 
of  history  and  literature  will  be  more  effective  than 
the  editor  who  is  not.  He  must  never  cease  to  be  a 
student.  The  moment  he  does  so,  his  usefulness  as 
an  editor  and  as  a  director  of  public  opinion  will  begin 
to  decline.  Unless  he  can  do  his  work  intelligently,  he 
is  not  fitted  to  perform  the  functions  of  an  editor. 

Will  H.  Mayes,  a  newspaper  editor,  formerly  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of  Texas,  says: 

The  successful  journalist  must  know  something  of 
everything  and  everything  of  something.  All  kinds  of 
grist  come  to  his  intellectual  mill,  and  his  usefulness  is 
measured  by  his  ability  to  grind  it  into  attractive  form 
for  the  public.  .  .  .  The  journalist  should  be  a  student 
of  books.  He  should  not  only  be  well  grounded  in  lan- 
guage, in  literature,  in  history,  and  in  the  physical  and 
social  sciences  as  they  are  taught  in  our  best  schools,  but 
he  should  be  a  constant  student  of  the  best  that  is  of- 
fered in  all  literature.  .  .  .  Not  only  should  the  journal- 
ist be  a  constant  student  of  books,  but  he  should  know 
men.  In  no  other  profession  is  an  understanding  of 
psychology  so  important,  because  the  journalist  is  really 
an  interpreter  of  men,  of  their  thoughts  and  actions.  The 
journalist  who  knows  the  most  men  and  who  knows  the 
most  about  those  men,  their  habits  of  thought  and  of 
life,  their  purposes  and  the  motives  actuating  those  pur- 
poses, who  is  able  to  talk  with  a  man  for  a  time  and 
really  know  the  man,  is  an  invaluable  asset  in  journalism. 


132  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Formal  Training. — So  far  as  formal  training  is 
concerned,  the  more  of  it  the  editor  has,  the  better. 
Certainly  he  should  have  a  good  high  school  education 
and,  if  he  has  the  backgrounds  afforded  by  a  college 
course,  he  has  just  that  much  more  chance  of  making 
good  as  a  disseminator  of  news  and  comment.  Some 
people  hold  that  the  country  editor  should  be  a  gradu- 
ate of  an  agricultural  college,  and  that  country  preach- 
ers, as  well,  would  benefit  by  that  sort  of  study.  It  is 
likely  that  both  the  country  editor  and  the  country 
preacher  would  be  more  useful  and  more  closely  in 
sympathy  with  the  rural  problems  which  confront 
them  if  they  had  such  training. 

College  Men  and  the  Country  Weekly. — More 
and  more  young  college  men  are  being  attracted  into 
the  country  field.  Sometimes  they  enter  it  directly 
from  college;  more  often,  perhaps,  they  come  into  it 
after  some  experience  on  city  papers.  But  the  signifi- 
cant fact  is  that  they  do  come.  The  field  is  attractive, 
better  business  methods  are  making  it  a  safer  financial 
venture  than  it  used  to  be,  and  the  chance  it  offers  of 
dignified,  influential  work  is  sure  to  appeal  to  the 
young  man  who  has  ideas  and  ideals  of  service  to  the 
community. 

There  are  plenty  of  chances  for  work,  and  the 
young  man  who  comes  from  college  with  the  idea  that 
country  journalism  does  not  demand  ability,  initiative, 
and  application  will  soon  find  out  his  mistake.  But  the 
fact  rerhains  that  to  the  industrious,  honest  young  col- 
lege man  the  country  field  offers  opportunities  which 
he  cannot  afford  to  dismiss  without  consideration  when 


THE  EDITOR  133 

he  IS  deciding  the  great  question  of  what  he  shall  do 
with  his  talents  or  aptitudes. 
Roy  A.  Stacey  of  the  Adair  (Iowa)  News  says: 

If  you  anticipate  that  you  will  build  up  a  paying  news- 
paper in  a  small  town  on  mere  bluff  and  get  something 
for  nothing  without  working  or  without  spending  energy 
and  initiative,  you  will  be  disappointed.  But  if  you  are 
willing  to  work  half  as  hard  in  the  country  as  you  would 
in  the  city  under  a  strict  boss,  you  will  have  several  times 
as  much  to  show  for  it  every  year,  and  you  will  have 
some  personal  independence  in  the  deal,  also.  It  will 
depend  entirely  upon  your  natural  ability  to  turn  mat- 
ters to  profitable  account  for  yourself. 

Editorial  Responsibility. — The  responsibility  of 
the  country  editor  is  two-fold:  First  he  owes  it  to 
his  community  to  give  the  news ;  at  least  *'all  the  news 
that's  fit  to  print.''  This  is  a  definite  obligation,  for 
when  he  accepts  the  subscription  money  from  each  of 
his  subscribers,  he  tacitly  accepts  the  condition  that  he 
shall  in  return  print  the  news  of  the  town  and  of  the 
country  adjacent  and  tributary  to  it.  This  phase  of 
editorial  responsibility  has  already  been  treated  in 
Chapter  II. 

The  second  duty  which  the  editor  owes  to  his  com- 
munity is  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  advance  the  inter- 
ests of  that  community.  The  first  phase  of  his  activ- 
ity is  mainly  a  business  phase;  he  collects  money  for 
news  service  rendered — there  is  a  definite  quid  pro  quo. 
The  second  phase  is  less  tangible  but  no  less  binding 
and  important.  It  is  rarely  put  into  words  either  by 
the  editor  or  by  the  subscribers,  but,  nevertheless,  it 


134  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

is  pretty  well  understood  that  the  proper  direction  of 
thought  and  activity  should  be  part  of  the  editor's 
duties.  The  paper  which  is  not  concerned  with  the 
upbuilding  of  the  country  round  about  is  not  a  paper 
that  will  live.  The  reading  public  trusts  the  editor  to 
keep  his  eyes  open  for  things  that  need  attention,  and 
to  bring  these  things  up  for  discussion  in  the  com- 
munity. He  must  commend  when  things  are  good; 
praise  is  a  very  effective  thing,  especially  in  a  small 
community  where  all  the  people  know  each  other.  But 
he  must  hit,  and  hit  hard  when  there  is  something  that 
needs  correcting.  In  this  way  only  can  the  editor 
keep  his  position  as  guardian-in-chief  of  the  welfare 
of  his  town.  Constructive  work  often  needs  to  be  pre- 
ceded by  destructive  criticism;  the  jungle  must  be 
cleared  before  building  operations  begin. 

There  will  be  plenty  of  criticism  for  the  editor  who 
is  trying  to  do  things,  and  if  there  is  a  weak  spot  in 
the  editorial  armor,  adversaries  will  be  sure  to  find  it. 
The  editor  must  come  to  his  task  with  clean  hands  or 
his  best  work  will  be  nullified  and  derided  by  some 
personal  shaft  directed  at  him.  Clean  news  columns, 
clean  advertising,  and,  most  of  all,  a  .clean  personal 
record  are  the  prerequisites  for  editorial  leadership. 
The  editor  must  expect  criticism  if  he  tries  to  do  any- 
thing worth  while,  but  if  he  has  a  record  that  is  a 
clean,  open  book  to  his  public,  personal  criticism  will 
be  disarmed  at  the  start.  It  may  be  hard  for  the  coun- 
try editor  to  reject  some  attractive  advertising  con- 
tract which  he  considers  inimical  to  the  best  interests 
of  his  readers.    But  the  editor  who  wishes  to  meas- 


THE  EDITOR  135 

ure  up  to  the  true  qualities  of  leadership  may  find  It 
necessary  to  do  that  very  thing.  "The  best  capital  a 
newspaper  can  have/'  said  the  late  George  D.  Perkins, 
of  the  Sioux  City  Journal,  **is  confidence  in  the  integ- 
rity of  its  character.  The  measure  of  confidence  it  has 
ought  to  be  held  sacred,  and  any  betrayal  of  this  con- 
fidence, no  matter  what  the  personal  consideration,  no 
matter  what  the  promise  of  pecuniary  or  other  profit, 
is  an  association  with  depravity.'' 

The  ''Subsidized''  Editor. — For  so  many  years 
the  traditions  of  the  newspaper  world  have  reenforced 
the  popular  idea  that  the  editor  is  the  defender  of  the 
liberties  of  the  people,  ''the  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in 
a  weary  land,"  that  the  majority  of  the  readers,  es- 
pecially in  the  country  communities,  place  great  faith 
in  "what  the  paper  says."  To  do  the  country  editor 
justice,  he  is  usually  the  most  independent  member  of 
the  editorial  genus.  If  you  were  to  approach  him  with 
the  proposition  that  he  sell  you  his  editorial  columns 
for  your  own  purposes,  you  would  probably  be  thrown 
out  of  doors.  He  regards  these  columns  given  over 
to  comment  and  admonition  as  the  chief  expression  of 
his  editorial  function.  Yet  there  are  many  men  who 
have  sold  their  editorial  columns  without  knowing  it; 
and  that,  too,  for  a  "mess  of  pottage"  rather  than  for 
good  hard  cash.  They  have  been  led  away  by  spe- 
cious arguments  of  wily  politicians;  they  have  been 
deceived  into  withholding  editorial  disapprobation  of 
things  injurious  to  the  public  on  the  ground  of  hurt- 
ing business,  or  of  other  community  expediency;  they 
have  been  misled  by  clever  talkers  into  championing 


136  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

some  pernicious  movement ;  they  have  been  fooled  into 
believing  that  they  should  draw  their  ideas  and  in- 
spiration from  ''the  man  higher  up''  in  one  line  or 
another.  Through  such  ruses  the  editor  and  his  read- 
ers have  often  been  exploited. 

Says  Horace  Greeley  in  a  letter  to  a  country  editor: 

"Don't  let  the  politicians  and  aspirants  of  the  county 
own  you.  They  may  be  clever  fellows  as  they  often  are ; 
but  if  you  will  keep  your  eyes  open,  you  will  see  some- 
thing that  they  seem  blind  to  and  must  speak  out  accord- 
ingly." 

The  editor  must  not  let  his  opinions  be  colored  by 
interested  people  about  him.  If  he  does  he  will  likely 
meet  the  fate  of  the  chameleon  which  worked  itself 
to  death  trying  to  harmonize  with  a  plaid  shawl.  Eter- 
nal vigilance  is  necessary  for  the  editor,  and  careful 
thought  to  determine  what  stand  shall  be  taken  on 
each  issue  as  it  arises.  It  is  undoubtedly  best  for  him 
to  keep  himself  as  free  as  may  be  from  all  entangling 
alliances  which  might  conceivably  hamper  him  in  the 
free  and  unrestricted  right  of  decision.  He  cannot 
afford  to  jeopardize  his  position  by  making  a  mistake, 
for  such  a  mistake  is  almost  never  overlooked  or  for- 
gotten. If  his  armor  is  pregnable  at  a  single  point, 
he  will  be  assailed  from  every  side.  Honesty,  cour- 
age, good  judgment,  common  sense,  and  invincible  de- 
termination that  he  will  be  the  faithful  guardian  of 
the  pubKc  weal  are  necessary  for  the  country  editor 
no  less  than  for  the  city  editor  with  a  reading  public 
of  a  million  people  daily. 


THE  EDITOR  137 

The  Editor  in  Politics. — Just  what  the  attitude  of 
the  editor  toward  political  activity  should  be  is  a  ques- 
tion that  can  be  decided  only  after  a  close  study  of  the 
local  field  and  local  politics.  What  has  been  said 
above  concerning  entangling  alliances  in  the  main  ap- 
plies here.  If  the  editor  finds  that  active  participa- 
tion in  the  politics  of  his  district  does  not  in  any  way 
hamper  him  in  the  free  expression  of  his  beliefs,  there 
seems  to  be  no  good  reason  why  he  should  not  en- 
gage actively  in  the  work.  The  country  editor  is  a 
force  that  has  to  be  reckoned  with  in  politics.  He  di- 
rects and  helps  to  crystallize  public  opinion.  If  he  has 
taken  advantage  of  all  his  opportunities,  he  is  better 
informed  than  most  of  the  men  who  run  for  public 
office ;  he  is  better  equipped  than  most  of  them  to  ren- 
der honest  and  intelligent  public  service. 

Theodore  Swenson  of  the  Dawson  (Minnesota) 
Sentinel  says : 

Our  business,  our  society,  our  governmeni,  are  the 
creatures  of  public  opinion.  Public  opinion  is  based  on 
what  the  people  hear  and  read.  The  brain  and  the  hand 
which  direct  the  press,  in  the  last  analysis,  lay  out  the 
route  along  which  human  progress  is  made.  It  may  not 
be  the  function  of  the  home  press  to  save  the  country, 
but  it  is  its  function  to  keep  the  sources  of  public  opinion 
clean,  to  stimulate  independent  thought  and  free  expres- 
sion, and  to  dispel  prejudice  and  thus  help  the  country 
save  itself. 

That  the  newspaper  man  can  command  a  following 
in  politics  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  in  the  present 
Congress  there  are  fifty  newspaper  men ;  while  a  large 


138  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

fraction  of  the  governors  of  states  and  their  secreta- 
ries have  been  chosen  from  the  Fourth  Estate. 

If  the  country  editor  is  filled  with  the  idea  of  serv- 
ice, however,  it  seems  he  could  do  a  more  definite  and 
intensive  work  in  the  newspaper  field  than  in  public 
office.  The  best  country  editor  is  he  who  has  no  de- 
sire to  leave  the  field ;  who  considers  his  paper  an  end, 
not  a  means ;  and  who  uses  his  editorial  power  for  the 
constructive  upbuilding  of  community  and  national 
ideals. 

Community  Betterment. — One  of  the  most  com- 
mon excuses  of  the  yellow  journalists  of  the  present 
time  is  that  they  are  "giving  the  public  what  it  wants.'* 
Unquestionably  they  are  doing  that  in  some  respects. 
For  example,  there  would  no  doubt  be  a  great  cry  of 
protest  if  comic  strips  and  the  Sunday  comic  pages 
were  to  be  discontinued,  for  the  public  seems  to  want 
these  grotesque  abominations.  The  public  has  been 
fed  on  them  so  long,  and  ''increase  of  appetite  has 
grown  by  what  it  fed  on"  so  that  they  now  seem  nec- 
essary to  circulation.  But  how  did  the  public  know 
that  it  wanted  these  things  until  the  newspaper  pro- 
duced them? 

Similarly,  it  is  likely  that  the  ordinary  reader  of 
the  country  newspaper  is  satisfied  with  actual  news 
happenings  of  the  week,  and  that  his  interest  in  the 
discussion  of  community  affairs  as  such  will  have  to 
be  aroused.  This  is  the  function  of  the  editor.  He 
will  have  Ho  make  people  want  his  editorials  before  he 
can  do  his  full  measure  of  service  to  the  cause  of 
community  welfare.    We  are  all  of  us  prone  to  com- 


THE  EDITOR  139 

plain  about  things  that  do  not  suit  us,  things  that 
could  be  remedied  ''if  somebody  would  only  do  some- 
thing." Apparently  it  seldom  occurs  to  us  that  our 
duty  in  the  matter  is  as  plain  as  that  of  anyone  else. 
Here  is  where  the  live  country  editor  finds  his  chance. 
People  want  their  home  town  and  the  country  around 
it  to  be  up-to-date  and  prosperous.  But  how  can  such 
a  condition  be  brought  about?  The  editor  is  practi- 
cally the  only  man  who  can  do  it.  He  has  the  means 
of  publicity  at  hand  and  he  can  rouse  concerted  action 
that  alone  will  bring  results. 

Scope  of  Community  Service. — The  scope  of  com- 
munity service  is  difficult  to  determine  in  the  large. 
It  ought  to  include  better  schools,  more  effective 
church  cooperation  and  activity,  county  and  municipal 
law-enforcement,  community  clubs,  marketing,  co- 
operative enterprises,  liquor  traffic,  taxation  and  bond 
issues,  sanitary  and  health  measures,  agricultural  effi- 
ciency in  all  its  forms,  public  safety — anything  that 
makes  for  public  welfare. 

It  is  obvious  that  simply  writing  an  editorial  or  two 
will  not  accomplish  the  ends  sought.  Effective  organ- 
ization and  constant  reiteration  of  the  value  of  the 
thing  desired  must  accompany  editorial  activity.  Com- 
munity clubs  should  be  formed  and  the  matters  taken 
up  through  the  medium  of  the  club  organization  with 
the  help  of  other  clubs  and  fraternal  bodies.  These 
clubs  are,  perhaps,  the  most  effective  ally  an  editor 
can  have  in  pushing  through  a  program  for  public  wel- 
fare. The  social  aspect  of  these  clubs,  too,  makes 
them  a  valuable  asset  to  the  life  of  the  community 


I40  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

quite  apart  from  their  value  as  a  pushing  force  that 
is  to  accompHsh  something  vital  to  community  life. 
Stagnation  is  deadly  to  community  spirit;  these  clubs 
counteract,  to  a  great  extent,  such  stagnation,  and 
revitalize  the  civic  and  community  spirit. 

^*The  enrollment  in  all  the  neighborhood  and  com- 
munity rural  clubs  of  Wisconsin  approximates  25,000 
members,''  states  a  bulletin  of  the  agricultural  experi- 
ment station  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin.  "When 
the  total  number  of  people  attending  more  or  less 
regularly  the  schoolhouse  neighborhood  meetings  the 
past  year  is  added  to  the  total  who  have  attended  the 
neighborhood  and  community  club  meetings,  the  grand 
total  reaches  the  conservative  estimate  of  175,000  dif- 
ferent persons.'' 

Working  with  such  clubs,  the  editor  will  find  his  in- 
fluence increased  many  fold;  the  social  life  of  the 
community  will  be  enriched  and  diversified ;  and  the 
good  that  comes  from  concerted  action  will  be  appar- 
ent in  countless  ways  throughout  the  whole  district. 

Editorial  Harmony. — Country  editors,  since  they 
are  all  working  to  promote  the  same  great  ends,  ought 
to  work  together  in  harmony.  To  be  fair  to  them  it 
is  no  more  than  just  to  say  that  there  is  comparatively 
little  friction  and  abuse  such  as  were  common  in  an 
earlier  day.  Twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago  it  was  an 
unusual  country  editor  who  did  not  have  something  at 
least  once  a  month  to  say  in  disparagement  of  some 
of  his  fellow  editors.  These  attacks  followed  the  edi- 
torial traditions  of  pen-lashings  as  established  by  Ben- 
nett and  Greeley.    Humorous  these  word  battles  were 


THE  EDITOR  141 

sometimes,  but  often  they  were  mere  vulgar  outbursts 
of  billingsgate  wholly  out  of  place  in  the  columns  of 
any  publication;  and  more  especially  in  a  publication 
which  boasted  that  it  was  a  home  paper. 

There  was  a  paper  in  a  small  town  in  Iowa  twenty- 
five  years  ago  that  owed  not  a  little  of  its  popularity 
to  the  fact  that  the  editor  each  week  published  some 
sort  of  a  tirade  against  other  papers  or  against  some- 
thing in  his  own  town  which  had  drawn  his  fire.  The 
paper  was  not  especially  successful  so  far  as  the  pub- 
lication of  news  was  concerned,  but  the  circulation  was 
relatively  large  because  people  wanted  to  see  each 
week  whom  or  what  the  editor  had  attacked.  It  was 
really  a  circulation-builder.  Perhaps  this  was  another 
case  of  what  the  metropolitan  papers  call  "giving  the 
public  what  it  wants.''  He  was  old  in  the  business 
and  most  of  his  subscribers  had  grown  up,  so  to  speak, 
on  his  kind  of  country  journalism.  His  undoubted 
gift  of  picturesque  vituperation  and  his  fancy  and 
free-hand  manipulation  of  language  of  high  voltage 
were  things  which  made  his  paper  significant. 

Today  there  is  as  great  a  need  as  ever  of  outstand- 
ing, significant  editorship;  but  the  day  is  past  when 
it  can  be  gained  by  scurrility  and  low  argumentum  ad 
hominem  wit.  The  popularity  of  blackguardism  has 
waned;  the  occasional  editor  who  employs  personal 
abuse  and  the  language  of  a  fishwife  to  characterize 
those  who  venture  to  disagree  with  him  is  as  much  a 
relic  of  the  old  days  as  a  Washington  hand  press. 

Opportunity  in  the  Country  Field. — ''Whoever  is 
content  with  the  ideas  of  yesterday,"  said  Sir  Henry 


142  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Irving,  ''the  journalist  must  be  equipped  with  the  ideas 
of  tomorrow/'  For  young  men  so  equipped,  for  for- 
ward-looking young  men  who  are  willing  to  do  their 
part  of  the  world's  work  and  share  in  the  world's  ad- 
vancement, there  can  be  no  better  field  than  that  of  the 
country  weekly.  The  harvest  is  ripe  for  the  sickle  and 
the  laborers  are  few.  There  are  battles  to  fight  and 
there  are  sacrifices  to  be  made ;  but  there  are  also  re- 
wards, both  material  and  intangible.  The  cause  is 
worth  fighting  for  and  it  is  not  a  selfish  one. 
Ovid  Bell  of  the  Fulton  (Missouri)  Gazette  says: 

Fortunately  the  country  weekly  is  beckoning  today  to 
the  man  with  trained  mind  who  can  think  clearly  and 
quickly,  who  has  industry  and  perseverance,  and  who 
has  the  courage  and  conscience  to  live  a  clean  life  and 
meet  life's  responsibilities.  I  am  glad  to  believe  this  man 
is  answering  the  call,  and  that  every  year  is  seeing  more 
and  more  men  enter  country  journalism  with  the  pur- 
pose of  making  it  their  profession,  rather  than  with  the 
purpose  of  using  it  as  a  stepping-stone  to  some  other 
end.  The  time  has  passed  when  a  man  with  a  case  of 
type,  a  can  of  ink,  a  ream  of  paper,  a  book  of  synonyms, 
and  a  grudge  can  establish  and  successfully  conduct  a 
newspaper.  Hard,  painstaking  preparation  is  required 
of  the  man  who  aspires  to  succeed  today.  So  it  comes 
about  that,  in  response  to  the  need  of  the  hour,  some  of 
our  great  universities  are  establishing  schools  of  jour- 
nalism in  which  are  taught  the  principles  and  the  ethics 
and  the  ideals  of  practical  and  intelligent  newspaper 
work.  As  the  years  go  by  and  more  and  more  men  who 
have  been  trained  for  professional  newspaper  work  be- 
come \\iorking  newspaper  men,  we  shall  see  not  only  the 
city  newspaper  improve  its  standards,  but  we  shall  see 
the  country  weekly  become  more  and  more  a  factor  in 
national  and  civic  life. 


THE  EDITOR  143 

Suggestions 

Put  something  of  yourself  into  everything  you 
write. 

Be  human  and  kindly.  It  is  more  pleasant  and  it 
is  good  business. 

Be  honest,  individual,  broad-minded,  just,  public- 
spirited. 

Constantly  try  to  widen  your  range  of  information. 

Don't  stop  being  a  student.  When  activity  ceases, 
dry  rot  sets  in. 

Don't  lose  your  temper  in  business  deals.  If  there 
is  a  real  cause  for  ''holy  wrath,"  make  it  so  hot  for 
the  offender  that  it  won't  be  necessary  to  repeat  the 
performance  soon. 

If  you  want  your  editorial  columns  to  have  the 
maximum  weight  in  the  community,  see  that  your 
news  columns,  your  advertising,  and  your  personal 
life  are  clean. 

Don't  use  the  country  weekly  as  the  stepping-stone 
to  the  local  post  office  or  other  little  political  plums. 
You  are  in  one  of  the  biggest  jobs  in  the  country  right 
now.     Don't  step  down. 

Cultivate  a  professional  spirit.  Be  proud  of  your 
work. 

Attend  editorial  meetings  and  take  some  part;  read 
your  professional  and  trade  journals. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE 

The  question  of  the  editorial  page  is  the  "no  man's 
land''  of  country  journalism.  It  is  between  fires  and, 
when  one  steps  out  with  a  definite  statement  either 
for  or  against,  he  is  immediately  subject  to  assault 
from  the  other  side.  It  is  certain  that  the  editorial 
page  has  lost  a  great  deal  of  the  significance  it  had 
fifty  years  ago.  Those  were  the  days  of  personal 
journalism.  What  a  certain  editor  thought  on  any 
given  subject  was  always  received  with  respect  by 
his  readers.  Before  and  during  the  Civil  War,  the 
president  and  his  cabinet,  congressmen,  and  public 
men  in  general,  as  well  as  private  citizens,  were  in- 
fluenced by  the  opinions  of  such  editors  as  Greeley, 
Bowles,  Raymond,  and  others.  Not  a  few  people 
who  read  the  papers  edited  by  these  strong,  outspoken 
men  adopted  their  ideas  through  blind  confidence  in 
them.  Such  a  situation,  of  course,  made  it  easier 
for  the  editor  to  influence  public  opinion.  These  men 
were  partisan  editors  and  their  influence  lay  chiefly 
within  the  party  which  they  supported.  This  is  the 
day  of  greater  independence  both  in  politics  and  in 
journalism.  There  is  greater  freedom  of  thought 
now,  and  political  ideas  are  not  always  cast  in  party 

144 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE  145 

molds.  Hence  the  partisan  editorial  is  not  so  common 
nor  so  effective  as  it  was  fifty  years  ago.  This  is  a 
hopeful  sign;  it  is  well  to  persuade  the  public,  to  urge 
readers  toward  what  is  good,  and  to  condemn  what 
is  bad.  But  the  best  way  to  do  this  is  through  rousing 
people  to  think  for  themselves,  not  by  imposing  the 
editor's  will  and  ideas  upon  them. 

Objections  to  the  Editorial  Page. — The  editors 
who  came  after  these  mighty  leaders  felt  keenly  that 
they  could  not  mold  the  opinions  of  their  readers 
as  did  the  men  who  had  gone  before,  and  they  grad- 
ually began  to  let  the  editorial  function  of  the  paper 
decline.  The  reasons  which  they  and  others  who  fol- 
lowed their  lead  have  given  for  minimizing  the  impor- 
tance of  the  editorial  page  are  mainly  comprehended 
in  the  following  objections:  (i)  Fearless,  outspoken 
advocacy  of  one  side  in  local  issues  often  leads  to 
loss  of  subscriptions  and  advertising;  (2)  people  do 
not  wish  to  read  editorials — they  want  only  the  news ; 
(3)  writing  editorials  takes  valuable  time  that  might 
better  be  spent  in  some  other  way;  (4)  comment  is 
not  the  function  of  the  editor — it  is  his  business  to 
give  the  news  and  nothing  else;  (5)  the  editor  can 
best  fulfill  his  duty  to  the  public  by  choosing  the  news 
he  wants  to  print  and  presenting  it  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  bring  out  the  point  of  view  he  wishes  to  be 
accepted ;  (6)  most  editorial  writers  lack  vision  and  ex- 
perience to  treat  properly  the  matter  they  have  in  hand. 

Since  these  six  points  cover  pretty  well  the  position 
of  those  who  oppose  the  editorial,  an  examination  of 
them  will  show  whether  this  position  is  valid. 


146     ^  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

(i)  Fearless,  outspoken  advocacy  of  one  side  in 
local  issues  often  leads  to  loss  of  subscriptions  and 
advertising,  a  cancellation  of  subscriptions  and  a  con- 
sequent money  loss.  This  is  certainly  true  in  some 
instances.  No  man  can  take  a  stand  on  any  ques- 
tion without  rousing  antagonism.  The  question  is 
whether  a  man  values  subscription  dollars  more  than 
he  values  the  knowledge  that  he  has  done  what  he 
knows  is  his  plain  duty  as  an  editor.  In  passing,  it 
may  be  well  to  state  that  the  proponents  of  this  argu- 
ment make  too  much  of  it.  Many  men  have  got  into 
quite  as  serious  trouble  by  refusing  to  take  a  stand 
on  some  question  of  public  importance.  As  a  rule  the 
country  editor  does  not  editorialize  on  questions 
which  are  likely  to  lead  into  a  great  deal  of  real 
trouble.  He  confines  himself,  if  he  is  wise,  pretty 
well  to  local  questions,  or  to  local  ends  of  larger 
questions.  The  circulation  limits  ought,  in  most 
cases,  to  be  the  limits  of  the  editorial  jurisdiction. 
It  is  mainly  when  he  gets  outside  of  his  own  bailiwick 
that  he  is  likely  to  encounter  difficulties.  Of  course, 
bond  issues,  liquor  traffic,  higher  taxes,  and  the  like 
sometimes  call  for  editorial  expression  which  rouses 
enmity;  but  the  editor  with  tact  can  put  forth  his 
views  inoffensively  and  yet  firmly  without  losing  the 
respect  or  support  of  his  readers.  After  all,  most 
people  respect  a  man  for  standing  by  his  guns,  and 
the  tact^ful  editor  who  has  won  the  confidence  of  his 
public  does  not  usually  suffer  financially  because  of  his 
editorials. 

(2)   People  do  not  wish  to  read  editorials — they 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE  147 

want  only  the  news.  This  is  tacitly  admitted  by  many 
papers  which  print  the  editorial  section  in  bold-face 
type  set  in  double  columns  in  order  to  attract  the 
readers'  attention.  The  thing  for  which  most  of  us 
take  papers  is  the  news.  Professor  Walter  Dill  Scott 
of  Northwestern  University  sent  to  5,000  male,  adult 
citizens  in  every  rank  of  life  blanks  bearing  this  re- 
quest: "State  in  order  the  five  features  of  your 
paper  that  interest  you  most."  These  blanks  were 
filled  out  by  over  2,000  people.  Local  news  led  with 
17.8  per  cent  of  firsts.  Editorials  were  given  the 
preference  by  9  per  cent. 

Facts  are  intrinsically  more  interesting  than  inter- 
pretative comment  on  facts.  They  are  easier  to  ap- 
prehend. Reading  editorials  is  work,  for  it  requires 
thought.  Man  does  not  want  to  work,  usually;  but 
he  is  a  better  and  more  useful  member  of  society  if 
he  does.  It  is  human  nature  to  dodge  the  issue  when 
we  can;  we  are  inclined  to  be  inert.  The  chief  pur- 
pose of  an  editorial  is  to  do  something  to  break  up 
this  sloth;  to  set  us  thinking.  Tl/e  country  editor  can 
easily  apply  the  test  to  his^editorials.  Are  they  de- 
signed to  get  some  beneficial  reaction  from  the  read- 
ing public?  If  they  are  not,  throw  them  into  the 
wastebasket,  for  they  are  not  worth  the  paper  they 
are  written  on.  To  be  effective,  they  must  explain  or 
make  clear;  they  must  prove  the  truth  or  falsity  of 
some  doctrine,  belief,  or  statement;  they  must  appeal 
to  human  interest;  they  must  touch  the  sense  of 
humor ;  or  they  must  rouse  to  action. 

If  editorials  are  worth  while,  they  will  always  find 


148  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

readers.  They  will  never  be  so  widely  read  as  the 
news,  probably,  but  the  people  who  really  count  in 
the  life  of  the  community  will  read  them  and,  since 
they  are  the  ones  for  whom  the  comment  is  intended, 
there  is  no  need  to  worry  about  the  fact  that  all  the 
subscribers  do  not  find  the  editorials  of  interest. 

(3)  Writing  editorials  takes  valuable  time  that 
might  better  be  spent  in  some  other  way.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  truth  in  this  objection.  The  organiza- 
tion of  the  country  office  is  so  loose  and  the  work  so 
multifarious  that  the  editor  is  certainly  a  very  busy 
man.  If  an  editorial  is  well  done,  it  will  require  more 
time  to  write  than  an  equal  amount  of  news  copy. 
It  should  represent  the  mature  and  settled  conviction 
of  the  editor  concerning  the  subject  in  hand  and 
should  not  be  carelessly  or  hastily  done.  For  this 
reason,  the  preparation  of  the  editorial  section,  even 
though  it  comes  but  once  a  week,  is  a  real  burden 
upon  the  editor. 

The  first  part  of  the  objection,  then,  is  sound.  It 
does  take  valuable  time.  But  that  the  time  could  be 
better  spent  in  some  other  way  is  not  so  evident. 
There  is  always  something  constructive  to  be  done  for 
the  betterment  of  the  community  and  there  is  no 
place  it  can  so  effectively  be  done  as  through  the  col- 
umns of  the  editorial  page.  It  is  the  editor's  busi- 
ness to  explain  things  that  need  explanation;  to  call 
to  the  attention  of  the  people  things  which  need  cor- 
rection;* to  get  the  proper  organizations  to  handle 
questions  which  naturally  belong  to  them.  The  min- 
istry of  enlightenment  is  the  sacred  function  of  the 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE  149 

editor  and  it  cannot  be  neglected  without  a  shirking  of 
responsibility. 

(4)  Comment  is  not  the  function  of  the  editor;  it 
is  his  business  to  give  the  news  and  nothing  else. 
This  is  specious.  It  is  the  function  of  the  editor  to 
give  the  news,  but  it  is  no  less  his  function  to  give 
comment  on  the  news.  This  has  been  done  from  the 
early  days  of  newspaper  publishing  in  America  and 
is  a  firmly  fixed  tradition  of  the  profession.  From 
his  position  the  editor  is  morally  obliged  to  give  com- 
ment. He  is  the  one  man  in  the  community,  usually, 
who  has  the  greatest  number  of  avenues  to  knowledge 
of  current  events;  he  is  in  a  position  to  know  more 
about  the  trend  of  affairs  both  local  and  foreign  than 
anyone  else  in  the  community. 

A.  F.  Allen  of  the  Sioux  City  Journal  says : 

The  editor  is  privileged  to  comment  on  every  phase 
of  life.  He  is  prescribed  only  by  the  limitations  of  his 
own  genius.  He  should  be  the  readers'  guide,  philoso- 
pher, and  friend  in  the  field  of  morals  and  ethics,  as  well 
as  in  the  field  of  business  and  politics. 

(5)  The  editor  can  best  fulfill  his  duty  to  the  pub- 
lic by  choosing  the  news  he  wants  to  print  and  pre- 
senting it  in  such  a  manner  as  to  bring  out  the  point 
of  view  he  wishes  to  be  accepted.  This  is  pernicious 
doctrine.  It  involves  suppression,  coloring,  and  dis- 
tortion of  the  news.  It  is  high  treason  against  ac- 
curacy and  fair  play.  When  the  news  is  presented 
fairly  and  without  bias,  the  reader  can  form  his  own 
opinion.    He  expects  the  news  columns  to  present  the 


150  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

facts ;  he  also  expects  that  editorial  comment  will  give 
the  opinion  of  the  editor  in  his  interpretation  of  the 
facts.  But  if  the  news  is  editorialized,  the  reader  is 
misled  as  to  facts;  and  with  his  basis  of  fact  wrong, 
no  matter  how  logical  his  reasoning,  the  defrauded 
reader  cannot  reach  a  conclusion  that  will  bear  the 
acid-test  of  truth.  No  editor  has  a  right  to  ''doctor'' 
the  news;  it  should  be  inviolable.  Coloring  news  is 
worse  than  suppressing  it. 

(6)  Most  editorial  writers  lack  vision  and  experi- 
ence to  treat  properly  the  matter  they  have  in  hand. 
Unfortunately  this  is  a  true  bill.  In  the  city  papers 
the  editorial  page  has  to  be  filled  daily,  whether  or  not 
the  editorial  writers  have  any  copy  that  is  worth 
while.  No  wonder  there  are  so  many  foolish  and 
futile  editorials!  Although  this  charge  applies  more 
or  less  to  all  daily  papers,  the  country  weekly  need 
never  have  this  indictment  brought  against  it  if  the 
editor  will  only  open  his  eyes  and  see  the  possibilities 
of  the  field.  This  sounds  like  heresy.  It  is  nothing 
of  the  kind.  The  country  paper  is  the  logical  place 
for  live,  effective  editorials.  The  country  editor  who 
is  wide-awake  will  deal  chiefly  with  those  things  that 
concern  his  readers  at  first-hand;  things  about  which 
he  knows  and  about  which  they  know.  Even  the 
things  we  know  best  have  to  be  brought  to  mind  and 
reviewed  occasionally,  and  there  are  always  new  ways 
of  looking  at  old  facts.  The  editor  should  think  with 
the  peojJle,  not  for  them;  and  if  he  is  alert,  he  will 
discover  these  new  ways  and  will  deal  with  things 
which  will  mean  progress  to  the  community. 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE  151 

Advantages  of  the  Editorial  Page. — There  are 
several  positive  advantages  of  the  editorial  page  that 
ought  not  to  be  overlooked  by  the  editor  who  is  try- 
ing to  decide  v^hether  he  shall  have  a  department  of 
comment. 

(i)  The  editorial  page  creates  influence  for  the 
paper.  Printing  the  new^s  will  give  a  country  weekly 
the  reputation  of  being  a  good  newsp^ptr;  but  it  is 
not  likely  to  cause  the  readers  to  regard  the  paper 
as  a  faithful  expression  of  a  vigorous  personality. 
The  only  way  a  newspaper  can  attain  a  real  person- 
ality is  through  its  editorial  columns.  The  country 
editor  who  does  not  give  expression  to  the  faith  and 
belief  that  are  in  him  is  rarely  heard  of  forty  miles 
from  home.  Who  does  not  know  of  William  Allen 
White,  the  editor  of  a  country  paper  out  on  the  plains 
of  Kansas;  or  of  Ed  Howe,  formerly  of  the  Atchison 
Globe f  For  selfish  reasons,  if  for  no  other,  the  editor 
ought  to  do  his  utmost  to  cultivate  his  paper's  per- 
sonality through  the  editorial  page;  it  will  be  another 
element  of  good  will  so  necessary  to  the  success  of  a 
country  paper. 

(2)  The  editorial  page  renders  public  service. 
Every  good  citizen  is  eager  to  do  what  he  can  to 
improve  conditions  in  the  community  where  he  lives. 
This  is  a  form  of  beneficent  selfishness  which  is  com- 
mon to  all.  Most  of  us,  however,  find  our  efforts 
limited  in  effectiveness  because  our  circle  of  influence 
is  so  restricted  that  what  we  think  and  say  are  not 
likely  to  count  for  much  in  getting  results.  The  edi- 
tor has  the  chance  to  widen  his  circle  immensely  if 


152  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

he  will  take  advantage  of  his  opportunities.  He  has 
the  power  to  initiate  discussion  of  things  that  are  for 
the  upbuilding  of  the  community;  through  the  edi- 
torial columns  of  his  paper  he  can  urge,  explain,  re- 
fute, persuade.  No  one  else  in  the  community  has 
such  a  chance  to  be  of  public  service.  And  because  he 
has  a  monopoly  of  the  machinery  of  publicity,  he 
owes  it  to  the  public  to  make  use  of  his  facilities  for 
advancing  its  welfare. 

News  publicity  is  a  powerful  thing,  but  it  is  to  be 
doubted  whether  it  is  half  so  powerful  as  editorial 
publicity ;  probably  because  the  latter  is  interpretative, 
while  the  former  is  a  plain  statement  of  fact.  The 
fact  that  a  drunken  man  ran  down  a  child  with  his 
motor  car  would  be  sufficiently  damning  to  him;  but 
if  the  editor  took  it  up  and  wrote  strong  comment 
upon  it,  he  could  shrivel  the  man  to  nothing  in  the 
community  and  do  much  toward  making  the  highways 
safer  in  the  future. 

Don  C.  Seitz,  business  manager  of  the  New  York 
World,  says :  'The  country  editor  can  clean  up  any- 
thing by  simply  printing  the  facts  over  and  over 
again."  But  if  there  is  added  to  the  news  facts  the 
biting  comment  that  evil  things  deserve,  the  power  is 
multiplied  a  hundred-fold.  The  editor  is  easily  the 
most  powerful  man  in  the  community,  but  such 
strength  as  reposes  in  his  pen  can  best  be  employed 
constructively.  Every  community  needs  a  critic,  but 
too  much  destructive  criticism  does  more  harm  than 
good;  it  does  not  do  to  have  the  name  of  a  common 
scold.     If  the  editor  can  find  something  to  commend 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE  153- 

now  and  then,  it  will  strengthen  his  position  greatly 
in  the  community. 

**We  are  continually  advocating  better  things  for 
Mexico/'  says  L.  M.  White,  associate  editor  of  the 
Mexico  (Missouri)  Ledger.  ''A  list  of  'What  Mexico 
Needs,'  as  well  as  *What  Mexico  Is  Proud  Of,'  ap- 
pears from  time  to  time  to  stimulate  civic  pride." 

Let  it  become  apparent  that  everything  that  can 
possibly  advance  the  community  is  the  province  of  the 
editorial  page  and  there  will  be  created  such  a  volume 
of  confidence  as  will  be  the  most  valuable  asset  a 
paper  could  possibly  have. 

(3)  The  editorial  page  fosters  mental  alertness. 
The  editor's  job  is  a  thinking  job  primarily.  But  in 
many  country  offices  where  there  are  not  enough  as- 
sistants, the  editor  finds  that  his  work  becomes  a  rou- 
tine which  he  follows  more  or  less  blindly,  doing  each 
week  from  force  of  habit  those  things  which  he  has 
done  a  thousand  times  before.  He  is  so  accustomed 
to  writing  local  news,  setting  it  into  type,  and  print- 
ing it  that  he  does  it  almost  automatically.  Such  con- 
ditions do  not  promote  newspaper  efficiency.  The  ed- 
-  itor's  duties,  instead  of  being  a  mental  tonic,  become 
a  dull  matter  of  routine.  He  does  not  have  time  to 
think  carefully  on  subjects  that  would  broaden  his 
vision.  The  editorial  page  ought  to  correct  this  con- 
dition. It  will  do  so  if  the  editor  takes  it  seriously 
and  does  not  allow  his  editorial  writing  to  become 
perfunctory  and  trivial.  Despite  the  fact  that  the 
editorial  page  entails  additional  work  on  the  editor 
who  is  already  overburdened,  it  offers  chances   for 


154  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

great  mental  growth  to  the  editor  who  will  approach 
his  work  with  the  proper  spirit. 

(4)  The  editorial  page  gives  opportunity  for  self- 
expression.  Unless  the  editor  has  a  positive  person- 
ality, his  paper  is  not  likely  to  be  a  success  in  the 
fullest  sense  of  the  word.  If  his  personality  is  vigor- 
ous and  assertive,  he  will  want  to  find  some  outlet 
for  the  expression  of  his  beliefs  and  feelings.  In  all 
of  us  there  is  a  longing,  often  vague  and  ill-defined, 
for  self-expression.  We  believe  that  we  have  thoughts 
and  ideas  that  are  worth  giving  to  the  public;  but 
most  of  us  remain  inarticulate  because  we  have  no 
way  of  putting  before  the  public  what  we  wish  to  say. 
The  editor  has  the  means  of  publicity.  It  is  his  func- 
tion to  present  to  the  public  things  which  he  considers 
are  for  the  general  welfare.  The  editorial  page  is 
the  only  legitimate  channel  through  which  he  may  tell 
to  the  public  those  things  which  he  deems  important. 

But  the  editor  should  be  sure  that  he  has  something 
to  say.  Too  many  editors  who  have  no  real  message 
make  the  mistake  of  simulating  one  and  as  a  result 
their  utterances  are  ''full  of  sound  and  fury,  signify- 
ing nothing.''  These  men  are  often  the  most  insistent 
with  their  empty  vaporings  and  do  much  to  bring  the 
country  editorial  into  disrepute.  Burke  expresses  the 
ideas  as  follows :  "Because  half  a  dozen  grasshop- 
pers under  a  fern  make  the  field  ring  with  their  im- 
portunate chink  while  thousands  of  great  cattle  re- 
pose beneath  the  shade  of  the  British  oak,  chew  the 
cud,  and  are  silent,  pray  do  not  imagine  that  those 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE  155 

who  make  the  noise  are  the  only  inhabitants  of  the 
field." 

The  editor  should  give  expression  to  inarticulate 
public  opinion ;  he  is  properly  the  mouthpiece  through 
which  the  community  speaks.  It  is  folly  for  him  to 
attempt  intelligent  and  convincing  expression  unless 
he  has  something  really  vital  to  say.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  almost  criminal  for  the  editor  to 
have  nothing  to  say  when  there  are  so  many  things  in 
every  community  that  need  public  attention.  The  man 
who,  from  week  to  week,  cannot  find  something 
worth  while  to  say,  is  certainly  not  fitted  for  the  role 
of  editor. 

Range  of  Subjects. — The  editor  may  be  puzzled 
to  know  just  what  the  range  of  subjects  should  ap- 
propriately be  in  the  country  weekly.  The  purpose 
of  editorials  is  to  be  read,  understood,  and  believed. 
Unless  this  purpose  is  achieved,  editorials  will  be  of 
no  value  to  the  community.  Hence  the  editor  should 
confine  his  attention  to  subjects  which  will  be  of  per- 
sonal interest  to  his  readers. 

Not  long  ago  there  was  a  discussion  in  one  of  the 
trade  journals  as  to  whether  the  country  editor  could 
properly  handle  national  subjects  in  his  editorials. 
The  discussion  was  marked  by  some  acrimony  and 
the  articles  in  some  of  the  country  papers  showed 
that  some  country  editors,  at  least,  could  ply  a 
trenchant  pen.  The  whole  discussion,  however,  was 
beside  the  mark.  It  is  not  a  question  of  how  much 
the  country  editor  knows,  usually.  It  is  a  question  of 
what  sort  of  editorials  will  result  in  the  best  reaction 


156  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

for  the  particular  community  where  they  are  pub- 
Hshed.  It  is  best  for  the  country  editor  to  confine  his 
editorials  chiefly  to  local  subjects — not  because  he 
cannot  understand  national  issues,  but  because  local 
affairs  should  properly  have  precedence.  When  he 
does  touch  upon  national  and  state  affairs,  as  he  is  at 
times  forced  to  do,  it  is  well  to  emphasize  the  local 
application  of  the  question  in  hand.  This,  of  course, 
cannot  always  be  done;  but  in  the  main  it  is  a  safe 
rule  to  follow.  Editorials  dealing  with  national  and 
world  affairs  ought  properly  to  be  written  for  the  pur- 
pose of  explaining  or  clarifying  the  situation.  With 
his  wide  reading  of  papers  and  other  periodicals,  the 
editor  is  usually  in  a  position  to  render  this  service 
to  his  readers. 

Sources  of  Material. — There  is  material  on  every 
side.  ''Look  at  the  dirt  under  your  feet  and  write." 
It  is  astonishing  how  many  editorial  subjects  there 
are,  even  in  the  smallest  town,  if  the  editor  looks  with 
the  seeing  eye.  Is  there  a  grade  crossing  in  the  town  ? 
An  editorial  may  cause  public  opinion  to  force  the 
railroad  to  put  a  gate  or  a  watchman  there.  Are  the 
public  schools  behind  the  times,  insanitary,  poorly 
lighted,  and  without  proper  fire  protection  ?  A  timely 
editorial  campaign  may  protect  health  and  save  lives. 
Is  the  public  library  used  intelligently  and  widely  by 
the  people  of  the  community?  If  not,  the  time  is  ripe 
for  a  campaign  of  education  concerning  the  possibili- 
ties of  tAe  library  as  a  stimulus  to  the  intellectual  life 
of  the  community. 

In  the  choice  of  subjects  it  should  be  remembered 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE  157 

that  timeliness  is  a  feature  of  the  best  editorials,  no 
matter  in  what  sort  of  publication  they  appear.  Was 
there  a  fire  in  town  this  week?  Now  is  the  proper 
time  to  start  agitation  for  proper  fire-fighting  facili- 
ties. Was  there  a  motor  accident  due  to  a  defective 
culvert?  Now  is  the  time  to  advocate  a  better  system 
of  highways,  and  better  care  of  those  we  already  have. 
Did  something  significant  occur  in  a  meeting  of  the 
school  board,  the  community  club,  the  woman's  study 
and  travel  club?  Interpret  it  to  the  community  in 
short,  concise  comment  which  will  not  frighten  the 
wary  reader  by  being  forbiddingly  dull. 

There  is  always  an  abundance  of  subjects  for  good, 
live  editorials  such  as  will  educate  public  opinion  or 
rouse  the  people  on  some  subject  which  they  have 
hitherto  overlooked  or  neglected.  The  editor  must  be 
alert  to  see  the  significance  of  all  happenings.  If  he 
is,  he  will  soon  educate  the  thinking  part  of  the  public 
to  want  his  editorials.  He  will  have  formed,  or  at 
least  have  fostered,  the  taste  for  things  that  count 
for  the  welfare  of  the  whole  community. 

There  will  always  be  certain  kinds  of  editorials 
w^hich  will  need  facts  and  figures  to  make  them  effec- 
tive. The  editor  must  know  where  to  go  for  this 
sort  of  thing.  The  office  library  should  contain,  if 
possible,  a  good  set  of  encyclopedia,  an  up-to-date 
atlas,  the  World  almanac,  a  reliable  dictionary,  the 
state  '^Blue  Book,"  ^^Who's  Who  in  America,'^  and 
other  reference  books  that  the  editor  may  be  able  to 
secure.  Census  reports,  bulletins  of  the  various  de- 
partments of  the  government  and  of  the  state  agri- 


158  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

cultural  college,  and  significant  material  from  the 
magazines  should  be  filed  in  an  index  or  "morgue." 
Exchanges  should  be  carefully  read  and  material 
clipped  from  them  to  reen force  the  editor's  argument 
or  explanation.  This,  also,  may  be  placed  in  the 
''morgue''  until  required  for  immediate  use.  The  pub- 
lic library  should  be  made  to  yield  all  the  help  pos- 
sible. Usually  library  attendants  are  very  willing  to 
look  up  material  for  people  who  are  interested,  and 
they  may  be  of  great  assistance  to  the  editor  in  pre- 
paring bibliography  for  his  research  on  any  given 
subject.  In  return,  he  can  give  the  library  more  and 
better  publicity,  and  the  people  of  the  community  will 
be  aided  in  two  ways. 

Getting  Results. — As  a  rule  it  is  not  hard  to  in- 
terest the  readers  of  the  paper  in  things  which  will 
benefit  the  community.  The  difficulty  lies  in  getting 
them  to  translate  their  newly-awakened  interest  into 
action.  There  will  always  be  a  faithful  few  upon 
whom  most  of  the  work  will  devolve,  and  of  these 
few  the  editor  is  almost  invariably  one.  If  there  is  a 
cooperative  creamery  to  be  organized,  a  consolidated 
school  to  be  built,  or  a  community  social  center  to  be 
established,  the  editor  is  usually  one  of  the  prime 
movers  in  the  matter.  Most  of  the  other  men  of  the 
community  work  seriously  only  in  affairs  which  in- 
terest them  personally  or  financially.  The  editor 
works  at  them  all.  He  may  be  a  bachelor,  but  he  will 
urge  belter  schools ;  he  may  have  to  buy  eggs  but  he 
will  do  his  best  to  help  in  the  formation  of  a  ship- 
pers'  organization  which  will  get  better  prices   for 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE     *  159 

what  the  farmer  has  to  sell.  This  is  hard  work,  but 
it  is  a  sample  of  what  hundreds  of  country  editors  all 
over  the  United  States  are  doing  week  after  week. 
Such  practical  work  immeasurably  increases  the  ed- 
itor's influence  and  power  for  good  in  his  home  com- 
munity. 

Roy  A.  Stacey,  of  the  Adair  (Iowa)  News,  says: 

If  your  newspaper  does  not  lead  the  thought  of  the 
community  in  general  matters,  you  are  not  measuring  up 
to  the  position  you  occupy  as  editor.  It  is  highly  desir- 
able to  take  especial  leadership  on  one  or  more  issues 
and  be  well  known  for  that  leadership.  It  brings  you 
mfluence  in  dozens  of  ways  and  enables  you  to  accom- 
plish more  for  yourself  and  for  those  whom  you  wish 
to  aid.    "Go  get  a  reputation"  and  the  rest  is  easy. 

Types  of  Editorials. — The  editorial  may  be  used 
for  several  legitimate  purposes :  It  may  aim  ( i )  to 
educate  or  explain;  (2)  to  prove  the  truth  or  falsity 
of  some  doctrine,  belief,  or  statement;  (3)  to  appeal 
to  human  interest;  (4)  to  touch  the  sense  of  humor; 
o^  (5)  to  rouse  to  salutary  action  by  definite  appeal. 
Very  often,  of  course,  the  editorial  will  do  several  of 
these  things  at  once.  Following  are  some  examples 
of  each  type. 


( I )  Expository. 
This  editorial  aims 
to  educate  or  ex- 
plain. Such  mate- 
rial may  be  gained 
from  government 
bulletins  or  from 
exchanges. 


Uncle  Sam  is  undertaking,  upon  a 
somewhat  experimental  scale,  to  form 
a  combination  between  agricultural  and 
fisheries  industries.  To  any  farmer  who 
has  a  pond  suitable  for  fish  culture,  the 
government  will  send  fry  and  fingerlings 
free  of  charge,  supply  detailed  instruc- 
tions for  their  care  and  development, 
and  throw  in  its  good  wishes.  It  hopes 
in  time  to  have  records  of  thousands  of 
productive  fishponds  and  lakes  through- 
out the  country. 


i6o 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


This  paragraph 
urges  action  and 
points  out  method 
of  procedure. 

(2)  Proof. 
This  editorial  pre- 
sents facts  and 
leaves  the  reader 
to  draw  the  obvi- 
ous conclusion. 


The  facts  v^ere 
culled  from  one 
of  the  editor's  ex- 
changes. 


(3)  Human 

inte«"est. 

This     editorial     is 

especially  good  for 

a     country     corn- 


There  are  not  many  things  that  a 
farmer  gets  without  a  great  amount  of 
hard  work.  More  than  anyone  else,  he 
eats  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of  his  face. 
It  would  be  a  fine  thing  if  Uncle  Sam 
should  give  the  farmer  something  that 
improves  his  table  and  betters  his  in- 
come and  yet  does  not  require  the  usual 
expenditure  of  muscular  effort.  The 
fishpond  once  made  is  permanent.  The 
fish  once  set  free  will  feed  themselves, 
take  on  weight  and  sweetness,  and  bring 
their  kind  into  the  world. 

Farm  people  ought  to  make  the  ful- 
lest opportunity  of  this  offer.  The  place 
to  write  to  is  the  bureau  of  fisheries, 
Washington. 


Is  it  true  that  there  is  less  drinking 
by  business  men  than  used  to  be  the 
habit?  Here  is  a  bit  of  evidence:  The 
entire  liquor  bill  of  all  the  lunchers  and 
diners  at  the  Advertising  Club  of  New 
York  for  a  recent  month  was  $30. 
There  were  something  like  4,000  regu- 
lar meals  served  in  the  clubrooms  dur- 
ing those  twenty-six  working  days,  not 
reckoning  the  dinner  parties.  This 
makes  the  average  bill  for  booze  not 
over  eight-tenths  of  a  cent  per  person 
per  meal.  In  other  words  not  over  one 
diner  in  forty  took  a  drink  with  his 
meal.  We  find  these  figures  recorded 
in  a  recent  issue  of  a  New  York  adver- 
tising journal — not  a  professional  organ 
of  temperance.  We  pass  them  on  to 
the  young  men  of  other  cities,  who  can 
be  trusted  to  draw  their  own  conclu- 
sions as  to  the  habits  of  the  success- 
ful members  of  what  is  possibly  the 
most  modern  and  progressive  of  pro- 
fessions. 

^ 

To  get  into  Iowa  is  to  feel  at  home. 
Iowa  is  peopled  by  **Rubes."  The  more 
I  see  of  the  smart  New  Yorker,  the 
more  I  love  the  *'Rube."  A  "Rube," 
as  I  understand  it,  is  a  man  who  has 
not  forgotten  how  to  be  human.    I  visit- 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE 


i6i 


munity.  It  pleases 
the  readers  to  see 
the  other  side  of 
the  conventional 
picture.  Material 
gained  from  a  va- 
cation trip. 


(4)  Humor. 
This  is  interesting 
and  humorous  be- 
cause of  the  unus- 
ual features.  The 
material  was 
gained  from  an  ex- 
change. 


(5)    Persuasive. 
This  editorial  aims 
to  rouse  to  action. 


This  paragraph  is 
educative.  It  sets 
out  the  facts  upon 
which  the  conclu- 
sion isbased.  These 
facts  are  gained 
from  government 
or  agricultural  col- 
lege bulletins.  Such 
bulletins  may  be 
had  for  the  asking. 


ed  a  lot  of  them  in  Iowa  and  I  had 
the  time  of  my  life.  I  rode  behind 
three  horses  and  in  a  sweet-running 
motor  all  in  one  afternoon.  Iowa  takes 
its  education  in  colleges  instead  of  in 
cabarets,  and  the  effect  is  easily  seen. 
It  is  a  wealthy  state,  and  that  is  not 
so  easily  seen.  lowans  have  learned 
that  a  dollar  in  the  bank  is  worth  two 
in  the  earring,  and  you  may  be  conde- 
scending to  an  Iowa  capitalist  without 
knowing  that  he  could  buy  you  out  and 
use   you    for   a   hitching   post    for   his 

horses. 

^ 

A  Wichita,  Kansas,  woman,  Mrs. 
Clara  H.  Morton,  has  filed  a  claim 
against  the  Wichita  Beacon  for  $1,000. 
She  sets  out  in  her  claim  that  she  was 
misled  by  an  editorial  which  appeared 
in  the  Wichita  Beacon  .Saturday  night 
before  election.  The  editorial  advised 
all  mothers  who  had  sons  to  name  to 
go  ahead  and  name  them  "Charles  H. — 
needn't  wait  until  after  the  election." 
Mrs.  Morton  took  this  advice  and  chris- 
tened her  infant  son  Charles  Hughes 
Morton  Sunday  morning.  Now  she  is 
asking  $1,000  damages. 


Today  the  American  housewife  uses 
ten  pounds  of  wheat  flour  to  one  pound 
of  corn — corn  of  which  we  have  an 
ample  quantity  and  wheat  of  which 
there  is  a  scarcity  that  approaches 
famine. 

Cornmeal  at  three  cents  a  pound  is 
equal  in  food  value  to  six  pounds  of 
potatoes  for  which  the  housewife  today 
pays  twenty  cents.  It  is  equal  to  a 
pound  of  cheese  for  which  she  pays 
twenty-five  cents,  thirty  cents,  or  more. 
It  is  equal  to  six  pounds  of  bananas; 
eleven  pounds  of  oranges ;  fourteen 
pounds  of  cabbage.  Three  cents'  worth 
of  cornmeal  contains  as  much  nutriment 
as  ninety-one  cents'  worth  of  eggs  at 
fifty  cents  a  dozen,  or  fifty-six  cents 
worth  of  round  steak  at  thirty  cents  a 
pound. 


1 62  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


Appeal  to  action. 
Persuasion  made 
effective  by  short, 
snappy  sentences. 


Think  of  corn,  study  corn,  talk  of 
corn.  The  result  will  be  to  your  bene- 
fit and  to  the  benefit  of  America.  Eat 
corn  bread.  Get  to  know  the  corn  bread 
of  the  south.  Have  a  real  southerner 
serve  corn  bread  to  you  once  and  the 
wheaten  loaf  will  no  longer  have  its 
appeal.  Know  the  corn  pone,  if  op- 
portunity offers.  Know  hominy.  Know 
the  grain  of  all  grains.     Know  corn. 

Other  Features  of  the  Editorial  Page. — It  is 

not  expected  nor  desired  that  the  country  editor 
should  fill  a  whole  page  every  week,  nor  even  half  a 
page,  with  editorial  comment.  There  are  many  other 
things  that  can  be  placed  on  this  page  which  will 
assist  and  enforce  the  work  the  editor  is  trying  to  do. 
'The  Public  Forum''  is  one  of  the  most  effective  de- 
partments the  editor  can  have.  If  he  can  stimulate 
public  opinion  to  such  an  extent  that  he  can  get  his 
subscribers  to  write  letters  to  the  paper  in  discussion 
of  public  questions,  there  will  be  a  much  more  enlight- 
ened public  opinion,  and  one  which  will  be  much 
easier  to  direct  along  the  path  of  effective  effort  for 
community  betterment.  The  whole  page  should  be 
kept  for  the  "opinion  page."  The  best  of  the  edi- 
torials from  his  exchanges  could  be  clipped  and  re- 
printed here.  There  are  sure  to  be  editorials  from 
other  papers  published  in  communities  with  problems 
similar  to  those  of  the  editor's  home  community. 
What  other  people  are  thinking,  what  other  people 
are  doing,  give  valuable  hints  to  those  who  are  in 
the  fight  for  the  betterment  of  conditions  at  home. 

If  the  editor  has   the  ability  to  ''paragraph" — to 
write  pointed  comment  on  current  events — so  much 


THE  EDITORIAL  PAGE 


163 


the  better,  for  a  little  touch  of  humor  is  a  good  thing. 
There  is  always  the  danger,  however,  that  the  humor 
may  be  primitive  or  far-fetched.  The  editor  should  em- 
ploy it  warily.  Such  editorial  ''nuggets''  as  the  fol- 
lowing are  good  reading  matter,  and  an  element  of 
popularity  to  any  paper.  They  present  the  humorous 
side  of  things,  and  yet  they  contain  food  for  thought. 

I      The  Stars  and  Stripes  and  the  cost  of  1 
living  will  soon  be  raised  in  the  Danish 
West  Indies.  I 


Women  of  thirteen  states  now  have 
presidential  suffrage.  There's  nothing 
unlucky  in  that. 


The  average  congressman  displays  less 
interest  in  freedom  of  the  seas  than  in 
free  garden  seeds. 

♦ 

TJiere's  no  law  against  hoping  the  new 
Russian  government  will  abandon  the 
custom  of  using  *'pi"  lines  as  names  for 
their  cities  and  officials. 


A  German  navy  officer  said  the  other 
day  that  "God  has  called  us  by  name." 
Now   we're  curious   to  know,  by  what 

name! 

♦ 

Another   optimist   is   the   fellow   who  I 
believes  the  pictures  on  his  packages  of 

seeds.  I 

^ 

The  Prussian  diet  may  have  more  to 
do  with  stopping  the  war  than  in  start- 
ing it. 

T.  V.  Bodine,  of  the  Paris   (Missouri)   Mercury, 

sets  forth  excellently  the  range  of  possibilities  for  the 

editorial  page  of  the  country  weekly : 

When  times  are  dull,  I  frequently  invade  the  treasure 
house  of  the  Bible  and  rewrite  an  olden  story,  getting 
from  its  wonderfully  human  pages  some  modern  and 


1 64  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

needful  application.  Sometimes  I  review  a  good  book; 
again,  I  take  a  fling  at  some  sociological  dragon ;  and  if 
the  time  is  really  heavy,  being  a  bachelor,  I  deliver  a 
jeremiad  on  the  decadence  perceptible  in  the  v^orld  femi- 
nine— never  forgetting  the  saving  quality  of  humor.  In 
its  highest  and  truest  sense  the  editorial  should  be  cul- 
tural and  its  vision  should  svv^eep  the  whole  world.  On  a 
country  paper  it  should  be  intimate  and  carry  personality 
with  it. 

Suggestions 

Remember  that  there  is  a  place  for  every  good  edi- 
torial. Express  your  opinions ;  but  don't  try  to  force 
them  down  your  readers'  throats. 

Be. fair.  If  someone  who  holds  views  opposite  to 
yours  wants  to  air  them  in  'The  Public  Forum/'  give 
him  the  chance. 

Work  for  the  best  interests  of  your  community. 
Writing  editorials  alone  will  not  accomplish  much. 

Commend  when  you  can;  but  if  you  have  to  hit,  hit 
hard. 

There  is  always  editorial  material  at  hand  if  you 
will  open  your  eyes. 

Write  about  what  you  know  best.  If  you  don*t 
understand  a  thing  yourself,  you  had  better  not  try 
to  explain  it  to  your  readers. 

In  the  main,  stick  to  local  subjects.  If  you  write 
about  world  affairs,  it  is  a  good  thing,  when  you  can, 
to  show  the  local  application. 

Use  your  own  library  and  the  town  library.  Build 
up  a  good  ^'morgue"  and  make  it  usable. 

Make  your  editorials  timely,  short,  and  easy  to 
understand. 


CHAPTER   VII 
MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

I.     General  Make-up  Problems 

Aspects  of  Make-up. — The  problem  of  make-up  in 
its  simplest  form  is  the  mechanical  problem  of  finding 
the  best  place  to  put  things  where  they  may  be  found 
without  much  trouble;  where  they  will  fit  perfectly 
and  present  an  attractive  appearance.  In  a  certain 
sense  it  is  the  problem  of  putting  goods  on  the  shelves 
in  the  country  store.  The  storekeeper,  when  he  gets 
a  new  shipment  of  goods,  does  not  dump  them  into  a 
pile  in  order  to  save  time,  but  spends  time  and 
thought  in  arranging  them  so  he  will  know  at  once 
where  to  find  them  and  classify  them  for  sale  or  for 
inventory.  Also,  he  gives  his  attention  to  placing 
them  on  the  shelves  so  they  will  look  well  and  add 
to  the  well-kept  appearance  of  the  store. 

The  editor  has  a  certain  amount  of  news,  editorials, 
and  advertisements  which  he  must  present  in  a  defi- 
nitely limited  number  of  pages.  He  must  so  arrange 
this  matter  that  it  will  fit  into  the  pages  he  has  to 
fill.  Nothing  important  can  be  left  out.  So  far  his 
problem  is  that  of  the  merchant  with  a  shipment  of 
new  goods.  But  the  editor  has  one  problem  that  the 
merchant  does  not  have;  the  editor's  product  has  to 

165 


i66  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

fit  exactly.  He  cannot  ^'lock  up''  until  the  forms  are 
perfectly  filled.  It  is  as  though  the  merchant  had  to 
keep  his  shelves  filled  flush  with  each  new  shipment. 
But  the  editor  has  to  have  his  goods  better  organized 
and  better  displayed  than  does  the  merchant.  When 
one  goes  into  the  country  store  to  make  a  purchase, 
the  clerk  is  there  to  get  the  goods  required.  The  pur- 
chaser does  not  have  to  know  where  they  may  be 
found.  But  in  the  country  weekly  the  public  has  to 
serve  itself.  The  editor  cannot  stand  at  the  reader's 
elbow  and  tell  him  where  he  can  find  the  various  ar- 
ticles and  stories  in  which  he  is  likely  to  be  interested. 
Hence,  the  editor  must  be  careful  that  in  his  arrange- 
ment of  material  he  classifies  and  distributes  the  vari- 
ous sorts  of  news  in  such  a  way  that  the  reader  can 
find  the  kind  of  news  in  which  he  is  most  interested, 
and  with  the  least  possible  delay. 

But  there  is  another  aspect  of  make-up.  After  the 
early  days  of  the  pioneer  general  store,  the  store- 
keeper came  gradually  to  the  idea  of  displaying  his 
goods  for  inspection.  He  made  the  store  lighter  by 
cutting  new  windows,  he  added  attractive  show  cases, 
he  installed  a  better  system  of  artificial  lighting,  and 
displayed  the  goods  he  thought  were  especially  at- 
tractive and  likely  to  coax  the  money  from  the  pockets 
of  his  customers.  It  is  very  possible  that  the  goods 
handled  by  the  merchant  were  not  in  any  way  supe- 
rior to  those  he  carried  before  he  made  the  attractive 
changes  in  his  store  building  and  management;  but  it 
is  certain  that  things  looked  better  after  the  change, 
and  that  the  general  public  had  a  higher  opinion  of 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     167 

the  efficiency  of  the  store  and  of  the  prosperity  of 
the  owner. 

Similarly,  the  editor  of  the  country  weekly  is  on 
trial  with  every  succeeding  issue  of  his  paper.  It 
is  his  dress-up  for  inspection.  His  readers  form  very 
certain,  even  if  unconscious,  estimates  of  the  editor's 
ability  and  the  worth  of  his  paper  from  its  appearance 
and  organization.  Their  estimate  of  the  worth  of  the 
paper  will  depend  not  wholly  on  the  intrinsic  value  of 
the  content,  but  also  upon  the  way  in  which  it  is  pre- 
sented from  the  typographical  and  mechanical  point 
of  view;  just  as  their  opinion  of  a  store  is  based  not 
wholly  on  the  value  of  the  goods  sold  there,  but  also 
upon  the  display  and  general  attractiveness  of  the 
store  itself.  Anything,  therefore,  that  will  create  or 
confirm  a  good  impression  is  of  value  to  the  editor 
and  should  be  given  earnest  consideration.  His  read- 
ers are  not  printers  and  do  not  know  the  canons  of 
the  printer's  art,  but  they  are  seeing,  observing  people 
and  if  a  thing  is  put  together  in  a  slovenly,  haphazard 
fashion,  they  will  note  it,  and  the  impression  they 
will  gradually  form  concerning  the  editor  and  his  pa- 
per will  not  be  such  as  to  constitute  an  asset  for  circu- 
lation or  influence. 

Things  have  changed  materially  in  the  matter  of 
neatness  and  system  in  the  last  thirty  years.  We 
used  to  buy  crackers  out  of  a  barrel,  not  over-clean, 
and  dried  fruit  that  was  open  to  air  and  dust.  Now 
the  day  of  the  clean,  sanitary,  sealed  package  has 
come.  We  used  to  read  newspapers  that  were  a 
hodge-podge  of  ill-assorted  type  faces  printed  on  an 


i68  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

old  press  that  would  not  give  the  paper  a  clean  im- 
pression. Such  things  cannot  be  tolerated  now,  for 
we  have  been  educated  to  expect  and  to  demand  some- 
thing better.  We  have  seen  the  better  way  and  can- 
not be  persuaded  to  go  back  to  the  old  ways.  Prac- 
tically everyone  in  the  field  of  the  country  weekly 
reads  the  daily  paper  from  the  city.  Also,  most  read- 
ers have  at  least  one  magazine.  The  cheapness  of  the 
farm  journals  makes  them  common  in  rural  homes, 
and  weekly  editions  of  city  papers  have  a  wide  circu- 
lation among  the  readers  of  the  country  weekly.  Be- 
cause of  these  facts,  readers  of  the  country  weekly 
have  been  educated  into  some  appreciation  of  order- 
liness and  neatness  in  newspaper  make-up.  They  re- 
sent it  if  the  editor  of  the  home  paper  does  not  give 
them  their  weekly  news  in  a  neat,  orderly  form.  The 
appearance  of  the  paper  is  the  first  thing  by  which 
it  is  judged,  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  things 
to  be  considered  in  building  a  circulation  which,  in 
turn,  will  increase  advertising  revenue. 

Contrast  and  Symmetry. — Effective  make-up  de- 
pends largely  upon  contrast  and  balance.  A  full  page 
set  *'solid"  would  present  a  gray,  unbroken  mass 
which  would  be  forbidding  to  the  eye.  Suitable  heads 
with  the  proper  amount  of  white  space,  body  type 
large  enough  to  be  easily  read,  and  properly  leaded, 
small  cross-line  heads  breaking  up  the  mass  of  the 
paper — all  these  are  devices  to  secure  contrast ;  which 
is  another  way  of  saying  that  they  make  the  paper 
easier  to  ^read. 

Symmetry  or  balance  of  a  page  is  attained  by  so 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    169 

placing  the  stories  on  the  page  as  to  give  the  most 
important  ones  an  equal  chance  to  catch  the  reader's 
attention.  Since  the  problem  of  balance  applies 
chiefly  to  the  stories  on  the  front  page,  it  will  be 
discussed  more  fully  in  Part  II  of  the  present  chapter. 
Classification— Convenience  and  Appearance. — 
Every  country  paper  should  be  "easy  to  read  and 
worth  reading,"  and  the  ease  with  which  a  paper  can 
be  read  is  determined  chiefly  by  the  make-up.  If  the 
type  is  of  proper  size,  the  impression  clear,  and  the 
material  classified  under  the  correct  heads,  the  sub- 
scriber will  be  favorably  impressed  by  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  paper.  If  he  wants  general  local  news,  he 
should  be  able  to  turn  to  it  without  any  hesitation 
and  fumbling  through  the  paper  to  locate  it. 

Each  paper  should  have  a  certain  layout  and  then 
should  follow  it  consistently.     The  following  layout 
and  page  schedule  is  suggested  by  Roscoe  E.  Haynes 
of  Fairport,  New  York: 
First  page :  Local  paragraphs,  personals,  and  impor-  "^ 

tant  local  news  with  headings. 
Second  page:  Editorials  and  comment. 
Third  page :  Headed  articles  of  secondary  importance. 
Fourth  and  fifth  pages :  Vicinity  news,  letters  from 

surrounding  towns. 
Sixth  page:  Story,  plate,  filler. 

Seventh    page:    Plate — grange,    fashions,    town    im- 
provement, etc. 
Eighth  page:  Local  organizations,   churches,   matri- 
monial, obituary,  etc. 
This   arrangement  excludes   advertising  from  the 


170  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

first  page  but  allows  for  two  columns  on  each  of  the 
other  pages  except  the  sixth,  where  there  would  be 
room  for  four  columns  of  advertising  if  necessary. 
This  layout  is  given  for  an  eight-page,  all  home  print 
paper.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  first,  fourth,  fifth, 
and  eighth  pages  are  arranged  to  run  in  the  last  forms 
to  allow  the  handling  of  late  local  and  vicinity  news; 
also,  that  the  last  page  is  an  important  local-news 
page  and  balances  the  front  news  page. 

Departmentizing. — It  has  been  found  that  the 
average  reader  likes  to  have  the  news  arranged  for 
him  under  departments.  If  he  is  eager  to  read  the 
county  correspondence,  he  does  not  like  to  search 
through  the  paper  to  be  sure  that  he  has  found  it  all. 
The  best  country  papers  are  those  which  are  most 
completely  organized  and  have  the  various  sorts  of 
news  plainly  headed  and  run  on  the  same  pages  week 
after  week.  There  are  very  few  people  who  wish 
to  read  everything  there  is  in  the  paper,  though  most 
of  the  country  weekly  is  read  by  the  adult  readers. 
If  there  is  any  special  part  which  is  not  desired,  it  is 
a  good  thing  to  know  how  to  avoid  it  as  easily  as 
possible.  An  old  man  may  not  care  to  read  the  doings 
of  ''the  younger  social  set,''  but  he  may  be  greatly 
interested  in  'This  Week  Forty  Years  Ago."  The 
paper  ought  to  be  made  up  so  that  each  reader  can 
easily  find  what  he  wants  and  avoid  what  he  does  not 
care  for.  No  editor  could  publish  a  paper  for  a  com- 
munity, even  as  homogeneous  as  the  country  public, 
without  including  some  things  which  seem  trivial  and 
inappropriate  to  some  of  his  readers.     But  it  will  be 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    171 

found  that  the  average  reader  will  not  discontinue  a 
paper  because  it  prints  some  features  he  does  not  care 
for,  so  long  as  it  does  carry  and  give  proper  emphasis 
to  the  things  in  which  he  is  interested. 

A  banner  headline  across  the  page  is  often  used 
for  the  county  correspondence  department.  These 
heads  indicate  the  page  and  increase  the  attractiveness 
of  the  make-up.  Such  heads  as  the  following  are 
common:  *'A11  Around  the  County,"  ''Within 
Twenty  Miles  of  the  Courthouse,"  ''News  About 
Folks  You  Know."  If  the  paper  follows  the  policy  of 
making  the  names  of  its  correspondents  public,  a  very 
neat  heading  box  can  be  set  which  will  give  the  name 
of  the  community  and  the  name  and  telephone  num- 
ber of  the  correspondent.  Nothing  beyond  this  should 
go  into  the  heading  of  the  correspondence  letters. 
Sometimes  there  is  an  attempt  at  humor  in  these  head- 
ings by  using  such  alliterative  captions  as  Readlyn 
Ripples,  Sumner  Summary,  Maynard  Musings,  West- 
gate  Warbles,  Hazelton  Happenings.  Such  "humor" 
is  dull  and  will  not  help  the  paper  among  its  readers. 
Every  important  article,  whether  in  the  county  cor- 
respondence or  in  the  general  news,  should  be  run 
under  a  head  which  will  call  attention  to  it  and  will 
break  up  and  diversify  the  page. 

Machine  Composition  and  Make-up. — The  bur- 
den of  make-up  in  the  country  office  is  becoming 
lighter  each  year  as  more  and  more  country  weeklies 
do  away  with  the  old  hand  drudgery  and  install  more 
modern  and  less  laborious  methods  of  doing  things. 
Machine  composition  will  do  much  to  improve  the 


172  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

make-up  of  the  country  paper  because  of  the  fact 
that  there  will  be  new  type  faces  with  each  issue  of 
the  paper.  Linotype  heads  are  attractive  and  can 
easily  be  set.  The  paper  will  be  easier  to  read  and 
more  organic  in  its  appearance.  Better  business 
methods  will  leave  more  time  to  devote  to  other  prob- 
lems of  newspaper  work,  and  the  editor  will  be  re- 
leased from  a  large  part  of  the  drudgery  which  has 
lowered  his  efficiency  in  the  past. 

IL     The  Front  Page 

Front  Page  News. — The  front  page  of  the  paper 
is  the  editor's  show  window.  Just  as  the  merchant 
puts  into  his  windows  attractive  articles  of  merchan- 
dise in  order  to  draw  possible  buyers  into  his  store, 
the  editor  should  put  on  the  front  page  of  his  paper 
the  most  interesting,  significant,  and  important  items 
of  news  for  the  week.  Louis  Wiley,  business  man- 
ager of  the  New  York  Times,  says :  'The  newspaper 
that  wins  a  permanent  place  is  the  newspaper  that 
learns  to  differentiate  between  the  essential  and  the 
nonessential — the  newspaper  that  prints  the  best  and 
most  important  things  on  the  first  page  and  leaves  the 
inconsequential  and  frivolous  for  its  other  pages,  or 
omits  them  altogether.''  Of  course  the  question  will 
arise  as  to  what  is  the  important  part  of  the  week's 
news,  but  in  the  country  weekly  this  will  not  be  so 
hard  to  decide  as  in  the  city  where  the  mass  of  news 
is  greater  and  the  nature  of  the  public  more  complex. 

The  most  important  news  in  a  country  paper  will 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    173 

inevitably  be  local  news,  even  though  the  paper  may 
carry  news  of  the  state  and  of  the  world  in  general. 
News  of  big,  outside  happenings  can  appropriately  be 
carried  on  the  front  page;  but  it  should  not  be  fea- 
tured there  if  its  presence  means  that  local  news  of 
interest  is  to  be  crowded  back  into  the  inside  pages  of 
the  paper.  The  weekly  paper  makes  its  appeal  and 
bases  its  right  to  existence  on  the  fact  that  it  is  a 
local-news  paper.  Since  this  is  true,  it  should  in  jus- 
tice ''play  up''  local  news  in  the  make-up.  A  good, 
live  page  of  local  happenings,  attractively  set  up  and 
arranged,  is  a  good  letter  of  introduction  for  any 
country  weekly  to  present  to  new  readers,  and  a  good 
means  of  holding  subscribers.  In  general,  the  front 
page  should  present  a  pleasing  variety,  but  it  should 
not  exhaust  the  news  interest  of  the  whole  paper. 

Contents  of  the  Front  Page. — A  good  front  page 
for  the  country  weekly  may  be  made  up  of  the  fol- 
lowing material: 

(i)  Leading  local  happenings  which  are  of  suffi- 
cient importance  to  be  written  at  some  length — arti- 
cles a  stick  or  more  long. 

(2)  Politics.  Preferably  with  a  county  interest, 
though  state  and  national  politics  have  often  a  local 
angle  and  hence  can  be  included  on  this  page. 

(3)  Proposed  local  improvements  and  reforms. 

(4)  Anything  in  the  news  of  the  day  that  is  un- 
usual or  curious. 

(5)  Coming  events  which  are  of  interest  and  im- 
portance to  the  community. 

(6)  Church  and  school  material,  if  it  is  carefully 


174  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

edited.  If  it  is  printed  without  editing  or  rewriting, 
it  would  probably  be  better  to  run  it  inside,  for,  un- 
less the  news  value  is  fully  exploited,  it  is  not  of 
enough  interest  to  warrant  a  place  on  the  front  page. 

(7)  If  the  paper  is  of  some  size,  it  is  often  a  good 
plan  to  run  on  the  front  page  a  summary  of  the  news 
contained  in  that  issue.  This  summary  should  be  in 
the  form  of  an  index  and  should  include  the  principal 
news  stories  of  the  week. 

Balancing  the  Page. — No  matter  how  carefully 
the  stories  are  prepared,  how  well  the  headlines  are 
written,  or  how  exactly  they  "white  out,''  the  excel- 
lence will  be  nullified  unless  the  make-up  of  the  page 
is  balanced.  There  are  certain  stories  each  week 
which  will  claim  the  place  of  prominence  and  there 
should  be  some  way  to  indicate  to  the  reader  which 
stories  are  important.  Also,  the  page  should  present 
a  neat,  orderly  appearance  that  will  not  offend  the  eye 
and  that  can  readily  be  followed. 

The  number  of  columns  to  the  page  has  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  the  method  of  balancing  the  page  in 
the  make-up.  If  the  paper  has  six  columns,  the  two 
principal  stories  should  run  under  uniform  heads  in 
columns  one  and  six.  At  the  top  of  columns  two  and 
five  can  be  carried  run-over  stories  from  "the  bottom 
of  columns  one  and  four.  Columns  three  and  four 
can  be  used  for  a  two-column  spread,  a  cut,  boxed 
features,  or  for  news  stories  under  heads  uniform  with 
those  at  the  top  of  columns  one  and  six. 

The  syc-column  page  may  also  be  balanced  by  put- 
ting top-column  heads  in  columns  one,  three,  and  five, 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     175 


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Exhibit  I.— An  example  of  careful  balance.  Probably  it  would 
have  been  better  to  balance  the  page  from  the  outside  to  the  cen- 
ter and  thus  give  the  right  hand  column  the  importance  it  ought 
to  have.  The  page  would  be  easier  to  read  if  the  lower  half 
were  broken  with  more  cross-line  heads. 


176  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

using  columns  two,  four,  and  six  for  run-over  stories. 
This  is  an  easier  way  to  balance  the  page  but  it  is 
not  quite  so  good  as  the  method  given  above,  since 
it  nullifies  the  effectiveness  of  the  right-hand  column, 
which  is  usually  considered  the  proper  place  for  the 
most  important  news. 

The  seven-column  page  is  easier  to  balance  than  a 
page  of  six  columns.  Beginning  with  column  one, 
the  make-up  man  can  use  alternate  columns  for  his 
more  important  stories,  using  columns  two,  four,  and 
six  for  less  important  stories  with  smaller  uniform 
heads,  set  in  italic  or  otherwise.  A  one-column  cut 
may  be  used  in  column  four  without  disturbing  the 
balance,  whereas  in  a  six-column  page  it  is  necessary 
to  use  a  two-column  cut  in  columns  three  and  four, 
or  single-column  cuts  in  columns  two  and  five.  All 
cuts  should  be  placed  above  the  center  of  the  page  for 
at  least  two  reasons:  (i)  They  balance  better  if 
they  are  above  the  center,  and  a  top-column  box  or 
head  may  be  used;  (2)  if  they  are  placed  in  the  center 
of  the  page,  they  are  right  where  the  paper  is  folded 
twice  when  it  is  mailed,  and  as  a  result,  the  picture 
is  so  badly  creased  that  its  appearance  is  spoiled. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  six-column  page  is  best 
balanced  by  working  from  the  outsides  to  the  center. 
The  seven-column  page  can  be  worked  straight  across 
from  the  top  of  column  one.  In  the  comparatively 
rare  eight-column  country  paper,  the  problem  of  bal- 
ance is  practically  the  same  as  in  the  six-column  paper. 

The  bajance  of  the  lower  half  of  the  page  will  be 
chiefly  the  result  of  cutting  long  articles  in  the  first 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    177 


|in,,(1iTilMt)fMtlBita 

tni>M|«iiTitnt»Mn- 


^£^ 


Br?. 


^JEs«frvy«>gg: 


.fi!irar»i^_'»"-w  r: 


Peoples  State  Bank 


USE 

Home-Grown  Lumber 

Lumber  lasts  better  and  acts 
better  in  the  climate  in  which! 
it  grows.  "Old  Faithful"  HEM 
LOCK  grows  right  here  at 
home.  Use  it! 

The  prosperity  of  the  sUte 
land  of  THIS  TOWN  depends; 
to<agreat  big  extent  on  the 
prosperity  of  the  lumber  in- 
dustry of  the  state.  "Old  Faith- 
ful" HEMLOCK  grows  right 
right  here  at  home.  Use  it! 

Nye,  lusk  &  Hudson  Co.; 


L.  PHILLIPS 


I    The  Store  That 
Saves  You  Money 


][ 


Fall  and  Winter  Stock 

is   Complete 

^^IN  TEE  LLNE  OFIg^" 

Flannels,  blankets,  woolen  and  fleece 
hose,  men's  socks,  raacklnaws,  iiweat* 
en,  and  underwear.      WE  can  offer 

You  All  this  class  of  goods  at  a 

Low  PRICE 

As  our  stock   was  .bought  before  the 
advance  in  prices. 

ft.  92122399'  filOBB 


S^53 

Tke 

Destroylif 

Aigcl 


-rSrS'^^fciS 


•^•■•~*^ifes?* 


Sas»«rsS 


J^ilS^^ 


THORI* 

TBLEPHOITB 

OOB 

*FH0VX  Ili'lUC. 


Exhibit  2.— The  above  page  is  a  good  example  of  the  pitch- 
fork" method  of  front  page  make-up.  Such  a  makeup  is  not  a 
good  advertisement  for  a  paper.  There  is  almost  no  news  on 
the  first  page. 

and  last  columns  and  continuing  them  to  an  inside 
page  with  a  ''jump''  head.     These  stories  should  be 


178  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

cut  to  the  same  length  and  the  stories  on  the  inside 
columns  chosen  to  balance  each  other  as  well  as  pos- 
sible. Absolute  balance  is  rarely  seen  and,  indeed,  is 
not  necessary;  but  the  page  should  be  broken  up  at 
fairly  regular  intervals. 

The  Name-Plate. — The  name-plate  should  be 
chosen  with  care,  for  it  is  important  in  the  appearance 
of  the  paper.  Country  papers  often  use  elaborate 
name-plates  of  black-face  or  shaded  text.  This  does 
not  harmonize  typographically  with  the  rest  of  the 
page.  In  general  it  will  be  found  that  a  plain  Gothic 
name-plate  or  a  more  rounded  type  such  as  Chelten- 
ham will  be  more  readable  than  the  text  plate  and 
more  in  harmony  with  the  modern  Roman  body  type 
and  the  Gothic  or  Cheltenham  heads  which  are  mainly 
used,  especially  in  offices  where  there  is  machine  com- 
position. 

Slogans  and  Corner  Boxes. — Many  country  week-- 
lies  have  now  adopted  the  slogan  idea,  following  the 
lead  of  city  papers.  The  New  York  Times  has  for  its 
slogan,  "All  the  News  That's  Fit  to  Print" ;  the  Chi- 
cago Herald  has  chosen,  ''Easy  to  Read  and  Worth 
Reading.''  Such  catch-lines  as  these  are  popular,  and 
are  being  adopted  widely  in  country  papers.  They  are 
usually  run  under  the  name-plate  and  are  supposed  to 
state  a  truth  that  is  typical  of  the  paper.  Such  slo- 
gans as  the  following  are  common:  ''The  News,  Re- 
gardless of  Pull,  Politics,  or  Religion,"  "Wisconsin's 
Leading  Weekly  Newspaper,"  "The  Biggest  Little 
Paper  iA  Delaware  County,"  "All  the  News  Most  of 
the  Time,  and  Most  of  the  News  all  the  Time,"  "A 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    179 

Newspaper  with  Character  Worth  While/'  "Independ- 
ent in  All  Things— Neutral  in  Nothing/'  "The  Old 
Home  Paper  with  a  Weekly  Message/' 

The  idea  of  the  slogan  is  that  it  gives  the  paper 
an  individuality  which  will  help  it  to  hold  readers; 
it  is  a  bid  for  intimacy.  The  slogan  line,  if  it  is 
well-chosen,  is  undoubtedly  of  some  value,  just  as  ad- 
vertising catch-phrases  are  always  valuable  when  they 
mean  something.  "Let  the  Gold  Dust  Twins  Do  Your 
Work"  and  "Ask  the  Man  Who  Owns  One"  have 
undoubtedly  been  of  real  value  to  N.  K.  Fairbank 
and  the  Packard  Motor  Company  respectively.  It  is 
obvious,  of  course,  that  to  have  any  real  value  the 
slogan  must  be  chosen  with  care  and  must  be  appro- 
priate. Far  too  many  papers  do  not  live  up  to  their 
slogans.  If  a  paper  proclaims  itself  to  be  the  best  in 
the  county  when  everyone  knows  it  is  not,  the  reac- 
tion of  the  public  is  not  likely  to  be  favorable  to  the 
paper. 

Together  with  the  use  of  slogan  lines,  the  country 
papers  have  quite  generally  adopted  the  idea  of  using 
corner  "boxes"  at  the  top  of  the  page  at  the  right  and 
left  of  the  name-plate.  These  boxes  are  used  for  a 
variety  of  purposes.  Sometimes  they  point  out  the 
value  of  advertising  in  the  paper  or  of  being  a  sub- 
scriber to  it;  often  they  call  attention  to  some  special 
story  in  the  current  issue ;  frequently  they  are  frankly 
advertisements  placed  where  they  may  not  be  missed 
by  the  readers.  It  is  a  question  whether  these  boxes 
are  a  good  thing  for  the  appearance  of  the  paper. 


i8o  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Certainly  they  are  becoming  common  in  country  pa- 
pers and  seem  to  be  here  to  stay  for  a  while  at  least. 

The  Case  of  the  Small-Town  Paper. — In  the  ma- 
jority of  towns  of  more  than  i,ooo  population  there 
will  be  more  than  enough  material  each  week  to  fill 
an  eight-page,  all  home  print  paper.  For  papers  of 
this  sort,  the  all-news  front  page  does  not  present 
many  difficulties.  But  in  some  papers  published  in 
towns  of  250  to  500  population,  the  problem  of  find- 
ing enough  significant  news  to  fill  the  front  page  with 
live  stories  is  a  real  one.  In  towns  of  this  size  there 
will  often  be  weeks  when  there  will  be  no  news  stories 
that  will  deserve  more  than  a  stick  of  space.  If  the 
front  page  is  made  up  of  short  local  notes,  it  presents 
a  ragged  appearance  which  is  not  desirable.  Then, 
too,  small  papers  often  find  that  to  print  a  solid  page 
of  news  on  the  front  page  will  rob  the  other  pages 
of  news  value  and  make  the  advertising  on  these 
pages  ineffective.  For  these  reasons,  the  smaller 
country  weeklies  have  pretty  much  held  to  the  plan  of 
running  some  advertising  on  the  front  page.  It  hurts 
the  appearance  of  the  paper,  but  in  such  cases  it  seems 
unavoidable. 

In  general,  the  larger  the  paper,  the  easier  the  prob- 
lem of  the  make-up  man  becomes.  It  is  very  much 
easier  to  make  an  attractive  looking  paper  with  an 
eight-page  home  print  than  with  an  eight-page  "ready- 
print,"  for  the  four  pages  of  home  print  cannot  so 
well  be  classified  and  arranged  with  some  idea  of  taste 
and  design  as  can  the  eight  pages,  all  of  which  are 
brought  under  the  scheme  of  the  office  make-up. 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     i8i 

III.     Advertising  Make-up 

The  Editor's  Part.— Effectiveness  is  the  ultimate 
test  of  all  advertising,  and  much  of  the  effectiveness 
is  due  to  the  successful  arrangement  of  the  advertise- 
ment on  the  printed  page.  The  most  successful  ed- 
itors, those  who  have  built  up  excellent  advertising 
business,  are  those  who  have  done  the  most  to  co- 
operate with  the  concerns  which  place  ads  in  the  pa- 
per. It  is  the  business  of  the  editor  to  know  how  to 
assist  the  advertiser  in  preparing  the  copy.  Good 
copy  is  fundamental,  for  without  it  all  the  artistic 
arrangement  in  the  world  would  not  produce  the  re- 
sults for  which  the  advertiser  pays.  It  is  necessary, 
then,  for  the  editor  to  know  the  principles  of  ad 
writing  and  of  typographical  display  if  he  would  ren- 
der effective  service  to  the  men  who  are  paying  him 
for  results. 

Using  the  Exchanges. — It  is  obvious  that  the  coun- 
try editor  who  does  not  know  the  principles  of  sound 
advertising  cannot  stop  operations  and  go  to  the  trou- 
ble and  expense  of  taking  a  course  in  advertising 
writing  and  display.  But  he  has  his  exchanges  and 
can  study  them.  If  he  will  spend  an  hour  a  week  in 
looking  over  these  exchanges  carefully  and  noting 
how  the  thing  is  done  in  the  best  papers  and  maga- 
zines that  come  to  his  desk,  he  will  soon  begin  to  have 
some  very  definite  ideas  concerning  the  preparation 
of  copy  and  the  effective  display  of  advertising.  It 
may  take  time  to  convince  his  advertisers  that  they  do 
not  know  how  to  write  copy,  and  certainly  it  will  call 


1 82  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

for  infinite  tact,  but  the  thing  can  be  done  and  is 
worth  doing.  Too  often  the  country  merchant  does 
not  know  how  or  what  to  advertise.  If  the  editor  is 
persistent,  he  will  be  able  to  make  the  merchant  see 
what  is  effective  and  what  is  not.  Price  advertising 
is  always  effective  and,  perhaps,  admits  of  easier  dis- 
play than  any  other  kind  in  the  country  office.  It  is 
more  difficult  to  set  sometimes,  for  the  display  of 
figures  often  calls  for  broken  measure;  but  in  the 
country,  especially,  price  advertising  pays  best — and 
it  is  easier  to  write. 

The  use  of  cuts  is  an  important  help  to  the  country 
editor  and  they  can  usually  be  obtained  by  the  adver- 
tiser from  his  manufacturers  without  additional  cost. 
Proper  newspaper  display  type  is  necessary.  The 
editor  need  not  get  a  great  many  varieties  of  this  nor 
go  to  a  great  expense.  Probably  four  faces  will  be 
enough  for  the  ordinary  office.  But  the  fonts  ought 
to  be  large  enough  so  standing  ads  will  not  have  to 
be  pulled.  Some  of  the  most  commonly  used  faces 
should  be  tripled  or  even  quadrupled  so  there  will  be 
enough  type  for  all  occasions.  A  common  fault  in 
country  advertising  is  that  the  printer  has  many 
''short''  fonts  and  mixes  them  indiscriminately, 
Gothic,  Script,  Old  Style,  Cheltenham,  Italic,  etc.,  in 
a  manner  most  inharmonious  and  displeasing.  The 
best  ads  are  those  that  state  simply  what  is  for  sale 
and  the  price ;  there  should  not  be  too  much  copy  and 
there  should  never  be  over-ornamentation.  Too  much 
rule,  to6  many  faces  of  type,  and  too  much  and  too 
heavy  border  are  all  bad  for  the  typographical  ap- 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     183 

pearance  of  the  advertisement  and  make  the  problem 
of  the  make-up  man  a  hard  one  to  solve. 

Make  a  layout  of  the  ad  and  then  take  it  to  the 
advertiser  and  show  him  how  it  will  look  when  it  is 
set  in  type.  It  is  not  often  that  it  will  have  to  be 
changed.  This  takes  time  and  presupposes  a  system 
in  the  office  which  will  allow  at  least  two  days  for  ad 
composition  before  going  to  press.  If  the  paper  is 
issued  Thursday  morning,  it  will  be  well  not  to  ac- 
cept copy  for  ad  changes  after  Monday  night.  The 
advertiser  can  soon  be  educated  to  this  and  it  will 
work  no  hardship  on  him. 

Front  Page  Advertising. — Whether  to  carry  ad- 
vertising on  the  front  page  is  a  question  that  comes 
to  every  publisher  very  concretely.  As  a  rule,  country 
advertisers  want  front  page  position  and  are  willing 
to  pay  a  little  more  for  it.  The  editor  who  is  con- 
ducting his  business  in  the  hope  of  legitimate  gain 
finds  it  hard  to  reject  increased  advertising  revenue 
by  refusing  the  front  page  space.  Especially  is  this 
true  since  there  is  so  much  division  among  news- 
paper men  as  to  whether  the  front  page  should  be 
solid  news  or  whether  it  can  legitimately  carry  ad- 
vertising. Make-up,  to  a  great  extent,  is  a  matter  of 
taste;  there  are  not  very  many  hard-and-fast  rules  to 
be  followed  arbitrarily.  Since  there  are  so  few  canons 
for  the  make-up  man  to  go  by,  it  is  sometimes  hard 
for  the  editor  to  know  what  to  do  in  this  matter. 

There  are  several  reasons  which  might  be  cited  for 
not  putting  any  advertising  on  the  front  page.  In 
the  first  place,  if  the  editor  has  a  really  professional 


1 84  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY. 

interest  in  his  work,  he  wishes  to  omit  nothing  that 
will  improve  every  department  of  his  paper  in  every 
possible  way.  He  regards  the  front  page  as  his  show 
window  and  there  he  wishes  to  display  his  most  im- 
portant wares — the  most  interesting  and  significant 
news  of  the  week.  This  show  window  can  be  better 
dressed  if  it  contains  nothing  but  news  attractively 
displayed;  advertising  here  destroys  the  unity  of  the 
page. 

Again,  the  prime  requisite  of  any  paper  is  circu- 
lation. Without  it  the  paper  cannot  exist.  There 
must  be  a  good  circulation  before  advertising  will 
come  in.  Now  the  impression  of  many  readers  of 
the  country  weekly  at  the  present  time  is  that  ''the 
paper  is  all  advertising.''  The  reason  is  easy  to  find. 
They  pick  up  the  paper  and  find  advertising  matter 
pyramiding  from  the  bottom  of  the  front  page.  They 
go  farther  into  the  paper  and  find  a  good  share  of 
each  page  given  to  advertising.  Now  these  readers 
buy  the  paper  for  the  local  news  and  for  the  news  of 
the  county.  If  this  material  is  spread  thin  among 
the  advertising  matter,  even  though  the  aggregate  of 
it  is  satisfactory,  there  will  still  be  the  impression  that 
the  paper  is  chiefly  an  advertising  medium.  The  av- 
erage reader  does  not  stop  to  consider  that  the  amount 
of  advertising  carried  often  indicates  the  excellence 
of  the  paper  as  a  news  medium.  To  him,  the  adver- 
tising is  simply  a  side-issue  or  by-product  which  is  all 
profit  to  the  editor,  since  he  has  to  publish  the  paper 
anywaj\ 

Various  editors  have  fownd  that  by  leaving  the 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    185 

front  page  clear  of  all  advertising  they  reduce  to  a 
minimum  the  complaints  that  the  paper  is  not  meet- 
ing its  news  obligations.  Take  an  average  country- 
paper  of  eight  seven-column  pages  all  home  print: 
The  first  page  will  be  made  up  of  local  and  county 
news  and  items  of  general  interest.  The  subscriber 
picks  this  up  and  reads  it.  A  great  deal  of  material 
can  be  put  into  seven  columns  of  leaded  brevier  or 
solid  ten  point.  If  the  news  is  judiciously  selected, 
the  reader  will  have  the  opinion,  by  the  time  he  has 
finished  reading  the  page,  that  '^there's  a  good  deal  in 
the  paper  this  week."  The  front  page  will  likely  con- 
tain material  that  will  interest  all  the  readers,  and 
the  rest  of  the  paper  can  be  read  in  its  departments ; 
if  the  make-up  is  right,  there  will  be  plenty  of  read- 
ing matter  close  to  the  advertising  so  that  this  will 
be  read  too. 

Position  of  Advertisements. — After  the  ad  is  set 
as  artistically  as  circumstances  will  permit,  the  prob- 
lem of  where  to  put  it  confronts  the  make-up  man. 
Of  course  it  is  understood  that  most  advertisers  would 
like  to  specify  position  when  they  sign  advertising 
contracts.  In  the  case  of  local  advertisers  it  may  not 
be  a  bad  thing  to  grant  position ;  but  in  the  case  of 
foreign  advertisers  it  is  better  to  specify  simply  "run 
of  paper."  Most  country  papers  now  run  advertising 
on  every  page  but  the  front  page.  The  idea  of  an 
all-ad  page  is  not  a  good  one  for  the  country  field  be- 
cause there  is  no  reading  matter  to  take  the  eye  of 
the  reader.  Most  advertisers  want  position  "next  to 
reading  matter,"   and  that  means  that  the  reading 


1 86 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


A  Stitch  in  Time 
Saves  Nine 

DOf/T  YOU  tSUSVS  m  PSEFAJieDNSUt 


PSED  COPSEY.  Ptnyrnk,  WA 
7ta  Luiaa  DBAUf 


Closing  Out  at  Cost 

^  NU«l.t  W.  <)M<4  Omit  TM«i»,  .1  llu  Uu 
kuJ.lcM  Thii>D€u>ku|>lHls  lm>l lihtlaMl 

One  Manure  Sprudtr 
Ont  »i-InchT>i.«  Van  Brondt  DriD 
Ont  J  2-tach  Disc  imperial  Drill  .  ^ 
2  International  Cim  Planten       '*' 

Cd«  aaj  La  Cnw  Mo.  Jolui  Dun  urf  <nl<  Gas  PI<Mi, 

J.  R  STERLING,  FERRYVILLE 


New  Robes,  Blank- 
ets, Duck  Coats  and 
Mackinaws,  Dresses 

gt  h  •fiords  upkamrc  10  unihcittMilknolM 
^  cialoaaila<lnwiocwlkitciei<ah  Roba 
riowe.  S>ri)l«  «■<  Bed  Wwhn.  F«r<  Ale  Hood 
.. .  «     .  ..  ,kj„,^  D^  c^  L*^„ 

'•  Howe  IVimi    Thk  Mock 


W.   A.   Haggerty 

FERRYVILLE.  WIS. 


Exhibit  3. — A  good  example  of  the  "pyramid"  make-up  of  ad- 
vertising bn  the  county  correspondence  page. 


MAKE-UP  OF  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    187 

matter  shall  be  interesting  and  of  such  a  kind  as  will 
draw  the  real  attention  of  the  subscriber.  For  that 
reason,  the  make-up  man  owes  it  to  his  advertisers  to 
have  something  really  interesting  on  every  page  so 
the  ads  will  have  a  chance  to  be  seen.  Ads  set  the 
long  way  of  the  page  are  probably  the  most  effective 
because  they  run  alongside  reading  matter  for  a 
longer  distance.  This  is  the  reason  why  many  adver- 
tisers who  take  a  half-page  in  a  six-column  weekly, 
prefer  three  full  columns  to  six  half-columns.  All 
these  things  can  be  explained  to  the  advertiser  and 
will  educate  him  to  the  editor's  ideas  and  make  him 
see  that  the  editor  is  really  trying  to  cooperate  with 
him  in  getting  results. 

The  pyramid  arrangement  of  advertising  on  a  page 
where  a  great  deal  of  advertising  is  carried  is  very 
popular  at  present.  The  ads  are  arranged  across 
nearly  the  whole  page  at  the  bottom  and  narrow  to 
one  or  two  columns  at  the  top.  Aside  from  being 
pleasing  in  appearance,  this  arrangement  makes  it  pos- 
sible to  run  more  of  the  advertising  next  to  reading 
matter. 


CHAPTER   VIII 
COPY-READING  AND  HEADLINE  WRITING 

I.     Copy-reading 

Why  Read  Copy?— After  the  editor  and  his  assist- 
ants have  gathered  in  the  news  from  all  parts  of  the 
local  field,  the  editor  faces  the  task  of  preparing  the 
material  for  publication.  This  demands  careful 
work,  for  by  the  style  and  method  of  treatment  of 
the  news  is  the  newspaper  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously judged.  If  there  are  two  papers  in  competi- 
tion both  covering  the  news  field  adequately,  the  one 
which  presents  the  news  in  the  better  manner  will 
likely  be  the  public  favorite.  In  the  presentation  of 
news,  as  in  all  departments  of  the  country  paper,  sys- 
tem and  planning  pay  a  large  dividend. 

The  editor  should  so  arrange  his  time  that  he  can 
read  every  piece  of  copy  intended  for  publication.  If 
the  busy  editor  neglects  the  function  of  copy-reader, 
errors  will  get  into  the  paper ;  so,  too,  will  items  which 
are  libelous  and  unfair,  and  which  cause  an  endless 
amount  of  trouble.  Great  care  should  be  taken  to 
avoid  the  publication  of  such  matter.  It  is  likely  that, 
in  most  cases,  these  inaccuracies  were  not  the  fault  of 
the  editor  originally;  but  they  become  his  errors  un- 
less he  c^hecks  them  up  strictly  by  a  careful  reading 

1 88 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    189 

of  copy.  Readers  do  not  always  know  who  wrote  the 
copy;  but  they  do  know  the  editor,  and,  if  the  paper  is 
habitually  inaccurate,  he  is  the  one  who  is  properly 
held  responsible.  As  a  rule,  the  editor  knows  his 
community  very  well;  he  knows  something  about  its 
history  and  traditions,  and  he  knows  how  the  men 
and  women  spell  their  names  and  how  they  use  their 
initials  in  their  official  signatures.  All  these  little 
things  have  to  be  taken  into  account  in  the  country 
paper,  especially,  because  the  readers  are  like  a  large 
family  and  they  want  the  news  straight,  even  if  it  is 
only  concerning  the  number  of  hogs  John  Peterson 
sold  to  the  local  stock  dealer.  And  they  have  a  right 
to  demand  such  accuracy. 

It  is  human  nature  that  the  mistakes  in  a  paper  and 
not  the  points  of  excellence  should  receive  the  com- 
ment and,  once  let  the  impression  become  general  that 
the  paper  is  poorly  edited,  it  will  take  years  of  care- 
ful editing  to  dispel  the  fixed  idea.  '^Safety  Firsf'  is 
as  good  a  motto  for  the  country  editor  as  for  a  rail- 
way company  and,  no  matter  how  competent  the  ed- 
itor's assistants,  he  should  see  to  it  himself  that  every- 
thing which  goes  into  his  paper  has  just  the  form  and 
just  the  tone  he  wishes  it  to  have. 

What  to  Look  for, — Before  the  copy  is  given  to 
the  compositor,  it  should  be  read  carefully  in  order  to 
avoid  the  following:  (i)  Inaccuracy  of  all  kinds — 
facts,  dates,  names,  figures;  (2)  failure  to  follow  office 
style  sheet;  (3)  errors  in  grammar  and  spelling;  (4) 
errors  in  structure;  (5)  errors  in  style. 

Unifying  the  Paper.— The  paper  should  be  unified 


190  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

in  style  and  tone,  and  this  can  be  achieved  only  when 
it  reflects  the  editor.  There  will  be  various  members 
of  the  staff  from  time  to  time,  and  yet  the  paper 
ought  at  all  times  to  reflect  the  spirit  of  the  man  who 
is  conducting  it;  in  the  country  we  still  have  personal 
journalism. 

Only  by  reading  the  copy  and  making  it  conform  to 
his  own  ideas  can  the  editor  be  sure  that  he  is  keeping 
the  tone  and  style  which  he  wishes  in  the  paper;  the 
tone  and  style  which  are  characteristic  of  him.  It  is 
assumed  that  there  is  a  style  sheet  in  the  office  for  the 
guidance  of  the  new  assistants  who  come  in  from 
time  to  time,  but  unless  the  editor  goes  over  the  ma- 
terial week  after  week  with  his  assistants,  the  style 
sheet  will  likely  make  but  little  impression  on  them. 
One  of  the  quickest  ways  to  train  a  new  assistant  is  to 
read  copy  and  proof  with  him  for  a  month  or  two. 
He  will  very  quickly  learn  to  do  things  the  way  the 
editor  wishes  them,  provided  he  has  reportorial  apti- 
tude to  start  with. 

Improving  the  Editor's  Style. — Not  only  will 
reading  copy  with  the  reporter-assistant  train  him  in 
the  requirements  of  his  position;  it  will  also  improve 
the  style  of  the  editor  himself.  It  may  seem  strange 
that  the  country  editor  needs  to  pay  attention  to  his 
style  after  writing  for  years,  perhaps,  in  the  paper. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  a  distinct  need  for  editors  in 
general  to  do  more  in  the  way  of  improving  their  style 
than  they  are  now  doing.  Much  writing  makes  an  easy 
writer ;  it  \ioes  not  always  make  a  precise  or  a  pleas- 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    191 

ing  writer.  The  conditions  under  which  much  of  the 
copy  IS  produced  in  country  offices  are  such  as  to  make 
careless  English  rather  common  in  the  rural  field.  The 
editor  should  do  all  he  can  to  make  his  paper  better 
in  every  way.  Education  is  spreading,  and  nowhere 
is  the  spread  more  rapid  and  noticeable  than  in  the 
country. 

Forty  years  ago  the  farmer  in  his  cowhide  boots 
and  his  wife  in  her  calico  stood  a  bit  in  awe  of  town 
folk.  This  is  no  longer  the  case ;  the  country  field  has 
changed.  The  farmer  drives  his  motor  car,  sends  his 
sons  and  daughters  to  college,  and  his  wife  is  as  well- 
dressed  and  as  widely  informed  as  her  sister  in  town. 
It  is  a  gratuitous  slap  at  the  intelligence  of  the  farmer 
and  small-town  man  when  the  country  editor  assumes 
that  a  careful  written  style  is  not  necessary  in  the 
country  weekly.  It  seems  likely  that  the  country  pa- 
per should  be  as  well  written  as  that  of  the  city,  for 
undoubtedly  it  circulates  among  a  class  of  people  whose 
average  intelligence  is  at  least  as  high  as  that  of  the 
readers  of  the  most  popular  and  best  edited  city  papers. 

For  the  editor  who  has  become  careless,  who  has  be- 
come confirmed  in  certain  turns  of  style  and  stereo- 
typed expressions,  a  careful  study  of  style  and  a  close 
reading  of  copy  for  a  few  months  would  work  won- 
ders. If  the  editor  really  has  his  heart  in  his  work 
and  wishes  to  produce  the  best  paper  possible  under 
the  conditions  which  surround  him;  if  he  wishes  to 
give  the  best  possible  training  to  his  young  assistants 
who  serve  their  apprenticeship  with  him,  he  will  not 


192  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

count  it  a  hardship  to  read  the  copy  and  to  attempt 
constantly  to  improve  his  style  and  the  general  excel- 
lence of  his  paper.  Occasionally,  as  the  editor  gets 
prosperous,  he  coasts  under  his  own  momentum,  and 
the  tone  and  style  of  the  paper  visibly  deteriorate.  This 
process  of  'letting  the  old  cat  die"  may  give  him  a 
large  leisure,  but  it  denotes  a  complete  atrophy  of  the 
professional  pride  which  ought  to  be  strong  in  every 
publisher. 

Proofreading. — In  most  country  offices  of  any  size, 
the  editor  is  not  the  proofreader.  Probably  in  nine 
offices  out  of  ten  he  ought  to  be. .  In  order  that  he  may 
take  every  precaution  to  insure  the  best  results  in  the 
paper,  the  editor  should  read  the  proof  with  his  ''green- 
est" assistant,  if  he  has  more  than  one,  holding  the 
copy.  In  this  way  he  will  be  able  to  "catch"  the  errors 
of  composition :  Spelling,  punctuation,  content,  broken 
or  imperfect  type,  wrong  fonts,  faulty  alignment,  re- 
versed letters,  and  incorrect  spacing. 

Aside  from  insuring  a  proper  revision  of  proof,  this 
will  do  a  great  deal  toward  improving  the  style  and 
general  efficiency  of  the  editor's  assistants.  Careful 
following  of  the  copy  will  teach  the  boy  or  girl  ac- 
curacy. Seeing  how  the  editor-copyreader  changed 
their  stories  before  using  them  will  give  them  ideas 
for  better  work  in  the  future.  Also,  they  will  get  val- 
uable experience  in  mastering  the  often  apparently  arbi- 
trary rules  of  the  office  style  sheet.  All  these  things  are 
vital  and  {here  is  almost  nothing  which  will  bring  bet- 
ter returns  in  style  than  such  proof-  and  copy-reading. 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING     193 

II.     Headline  Writing 

Function  of  the  Headline. — The  headline  aims  to 
bring  out  the  salient  features  of  a  news  story,  with- 
out over-stating  or  leaving  anything  to  the  inference 
of  the  casual  reader  of  the  head.  It  is  a  brief  bulletin 
or  show  window  which  is  designed  to  attract  the  care- 
less and  hurried  reader  to  a  thorough  reading  of  the 
story.  It  is  an  advertisement  of  what  appears  in  the 
story  below.  Headline  writing,  then,  is  a  sort  of  ad- 
vertising writing,  with  the  exception  that  there  is  a 
restriction  of  space  which  makes  the  art  more  difficult. 
Since  all  advertising  to  be  effective  must  be  simple  and 
plain,  headline  writing  calls  for  the  ability  to  put  con- 
cretely and  interestingly  before  the  public  the  **plot'* 
of  the  story.  The  old  label  headline,  which  we  see  but 
rarely  now,  had  to  go  because  it  did  not  do  these 
things.  Such  headlines  as  '^Washington  Letter''  and 
'^Mining  News"  were  found  to  be  too  general  to  at- 
tract the  interest  of  the  reading  public. 

Again,  advertising  to  be  wholly  effective  must  be 
honest,  and  the  headline  writer  who  strives  after  a 
sensational  twist  which  the  facts  of  his  story  will  not 
warrant  is  cheating  the  public  just  as  does  the  dishon- 
est advertiser. 

Attractive  and  well-balanced  heads  add  to  the  pleas- 
ing appearance  of  the  paper,  break  up  the  page,  and 
make  it  easier  to  read,  just  as  classification  of  news 
matter  does.  But  headlines,  especially  in  the  country 
paper,  should  not  usurp  the  space  and  function  of  the 
news  story.    They  are  used  to  point  to  something  more 


194 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


interesting  and  more  important  than  themselves.  For 
that  reason  the  headHne  should  never  be  cultivated  for 
itself  alone;  it  is  merely  a  means  to  an  end. 

Kinds  of  Headlines. — There  are  four  conventional 
types  of  headlines  which  are  used  in  American  news- 
papers today.  The  kinds  and  sizes  of  type  used  in 
these  heads  vary  according  to  the  individual  usage  of 
the  paper.  These  headlines  are  set  in  ^'decks'*  or 
"banks''  and  rarely,  in  the  country  paper,  does  a  head 
exceed  four  banks.  The  four  types  of  heads  men- 
tioned above  are  (i)  drop-line,  (2)  pyramid,  (3) 
hanging  indention,  and  (4)  crossline. 

The  Drop-Line. — The  drop-line  head,  which  is 
rarely  used  except  for  the  first  deck,  may  consist  of 
two,  three,  or  (rarely)  four  parts.  In  the  two-part 
drop-line,  which  is  the  commonest  form  in  country  pa- 
pers, the  first  line  begins  at  the  left-hand  column  rule 
and  extends  to  within  a  few  units  of  the  right-hand 
column  rule;  the  second  line  is  indented  a  few  units 
from  the  left-hand  rule  and  extends  flush  to  the  right- 
hand  rule: 


spoils  POLITICS  IDEA 
IN  STATETAX  BOARD 

URGES  GREATER  CARE 
AT  GRADE  CROSSINGS 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    195 

In  the  three-part  drop-line,  the  first  line  is  set  flush 
with  the  left-hand  column  rule,  the  second  line  is  cen- 
tered, and  the  third  line  is  set  flush  to  the  right-hand 
column  rule: 

MILLIONS  ARE  EAGER 
TO  SERVE  FATHERLAND; 
VOLUNTEER  SERVICES 

TODAY  TH[  WHOLE 
NATION  PAUSES  IN 
TRIBUTETO  LABOR 

The  four-part  drop-line,  which  is  not  used  extensively, 
provides  for  shorter  lines.  This  head  should  never  be 
used  in  a  country  weekly : 

GERMANY  ADMITS 
EEEORT  TO  LEARN 
WHETHER  MEXICO 
WOULD  nGHT  U.S. 


196 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


The  Pyramid. — Pyramid  heads,  so  named  because 
they  resemble  an  inverted  pyramid,  are  usually  used 
for  some  deck  other  than  the  first.  Occasionally,  how- 
ever, a  paper  will  be  found  which  uses  the  pyramid  in 
the  first  deck.  This  head  consists,  usually,  of  three 
or  more  lines,  each  line  shorter  than  the  one  above  it, 
and  all  of  them  centered : 


Miss  Virginia  M.  Gibbes  Elected 
for  City. 


Politicians    Hold     Gov- 
ernor Will  Now  Be 
Responsible. 

Specially    Designed     Signs 

Will  Show  Road  From 

Sacramento  to 

Canada 


Hanging  Indention. — The  hanging  indention  head 
is  so  named  from  the  fact  that  the  first  line  is  set  flush 
with  the  column-rule  on  both  sides,  and  the  succeeding 
lines  indented  two  or  more  ems : 


REPUBLICAN  LEADERS  NOT 
IN  GOOD  FAITH,  MOOSE 
CHIEFTAINS  CHARGE  IN 
STATEMENT 


Sickness  Adds  to  Suffering  from 
Cold — Mosida  Residents  Burn- 
ing Their  Outbuildings. 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    197 

The  Cross-Line. — This  is  the  simplest  form  of  head 
and  consists,  as  the  name  implies,  of  a  simple  cross 
line,  usually  set  flush  to  the  column-rule  at  each  side, 
though  a  short  line  may  be  used  and  centered : 


NEED  MORAL  EDUCATION 


NEWSPAPERMEN  tRE  BARRED 


Heads  for  the  Country  Weekly. — The  country 
weekly  does  not  need  a  great  variety  of  headlines,  but 
there  should  be  enough  sizes  and  styles  to  indicate 
the  varying  importance  of  news  stories.  Most  coun- 
try offices  could  do  very  well  with  five  styles  of 
heads. 

(i)  The  first  head,  which  could  be  used  for  the 
most  important  news,  could  be  set  in  four  decks  or 
banks :  The  first  deck  a  two-part  drop-line  head  of  24 
point  condensed  or  extra-condensed  Gothic  or  Chel- 
tenham, the  second  a  three-line  pyramid  of  8,  10,  or 
12  point  black-face  caps,  the  third  a  cross-line  head 
of  14  to  18  point  caps,  and  the  final  bank  another 
pyramid  of  8  or  10  point  black-face  caps  and  lower 
case: 


198 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

GRADE  GUERNSEY 
WINS  HIGH  TEST 


IN    THE    DECEMBER    SHOWING    OF 

SHAWANO     COUNTY     CATTLE 

TESTING  ASSOCIATION. 


OWNED  BY  P.  DRUCKREY 


Best    Herd    Average    Goes    to    George 
Schuman — Need  For  Bet- 
ter Sires  is  Felt. 


During  the  month  of  December,  there 
were  302  cows  tested,  and  of  this  num- 
ber   three    produced     more     than     the 

(2)  An  effective  head  for  news  slightly  less  impor- 
tant could  be  set  in  two  decks :  The  first  a  two-part 
drop-line  of  18  or  24  point  Gothic  or  Cheltenham 
condensed  or  extra  condensed,  the  second  a  three-  or 
four-line  hanging  indention  or  pyramid  head  of  8  to 
12  point  black-face  caps  and  lower  case. 

BEAVERS  MENACE 
PROPERTY  RIGHTS 


Little  Animals  in  Southern  Bayfield 
County  Said  to  be  Doing  Consider- 
able Damage  and  Residents  Desire 
Their  Eemoval. 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING     199 

(3)  The  third  head,  which  is  always  good  for  the 
country  weekly,  is  set  in  two  decks:  The  first  is  a 
cross-line  head  set  in  12  to  18  point  black-face  con- 
densed caps,  and  the  second  is  a  two-  or  three-part 
pyramid  or  a  hanging  indention  of  8  to  12  point  extra 
condensed  caps  and  lower  case. 

LIFE  IN  THE  U.  S.  ARMY. 


Interesting  Letter  from  Jesse  Seeley, 
Who  Recently  Enlisted  With  Uncle 
Sam  at  Jefferson  Barracks,  Mo. 


(4)  To  call  attention  to  shorter  articles  and  to  diver- 
sify the  make-up,  a  cross-line  head  of  8  to  12  point 
caps  is  good.  Eight  point  caps  and  lower  case  can  be 
used  to  mark  divisions  in  long  articles. 

I  MINSTREL  SHOW  A  SUCCESS  | 

ing  to  grant.  Armament  is  merely  an 
instrument;  but  the  state  which  has  the 
instrument  has  the  advantage  when  the 
time  comes  which  requires  its  use. 

right  in  Defense. 

"Men  fight  both  for  tangible  and  for 
intangible  things.  Among  the  tangible 
things  are :  a  nation's  defense  of 
its  own  soil;   defense  against  its  own 

(5)  On  occasions  when  there  is  a  piece  of  news 
which  is  epoch-making  in  the  history  of  the  county  or 
the  town,  there  may  arise  a  need  for  a  bigger  head 
than  any  of  these — one  spread  across  two  columns. 


200 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


This  can  easily  be  done  and  a  good  balance  preserved 
by  running  the  double-column  head  in  columns  three 
and  four  of  a  six-column  paper.  The  first  deck  may 
be  a  36  point  cross-line  or  two-part  drop-line  in  con- 
densed type.  This  may  be  followed  in  the  second  deck 
with  a  two-  or  three-line  pyramid ;  the  third  deck  may 
be  a  cross-line ;  and  the  final  deck  a  pyramid.  The  ex- 
ample given  below  is  reduced  in  size. 


GREAT  NATIONAL  CAMPAIGN 

COMES  TO  AN  END 


The   Outcome   Somewhat   in   Doubt    But 

Wilson  and  Marshall  May  be 

the  Victors 


RESULTS  CLOSE  IN  A  NUMBER  OF  STATES 


Wisconsin  Voters   Favor  the  Return  of  the  Re- 
publican Party  to  Power  at  Washington- 
Outcome  of  Local  Contests 


r' 


The  national  campaign 
came  to  an  end  Tuesday 
evening  Vhen  the  voters  had 
finished  voting  but  the  results 


tration  made  him  a  formida- 
ble candidate. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  next 
national  house  of  representa- 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    201 

These  five  styles  of  heads  will  usually  suffice  for  the 
ordinary  country  office  where  a  great  variety  of  heads 
is  to  be  avoided.  To  aid  in  the  system  of  make-up, 
it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  the  compositor  and  the 
head- writer  each  to  have  a  printed  copy  of  the  five 
model  heads  numbered  from  one  to  five  with  the  num- 
ber of  units  in  each  line  indicated. 

In  counting  units,  each  letter  and  each  space  is 
counted  as  one,  except  that  ''M''  and  ''W  count  as  one 
and  one-half  and  'T'  and  punctuation  marks  count  as 
one-half.  If  the  head-writer  wishes  to  use  a  No.  i 
head,  all  he  needs  to  do  is  to  note  on  the  head  card 
the  number  of  units  he  can  use  in  each  deck,  and  for- 
mulate the  head  accordingly.  Thus  the  head-writer 
will  be  sure  that  his  lines  will  fit  and  white-out  prop- 
erly without  having  to  "stretch  the  measure,''  and  he 
can  indicate  on  the  copy  by  number  just  how  he  wishes 
the  compositor  to  set  the  head. 

In  general,  it  seems  that  the  more  news  there  is  on 
the  page,  the  easier  it  is  to  write  attractive  heads.  For 
this  reason  it  is  usually  the  paper  that  has  a  good  news 
territory  which  has  the  most  attractive  heads  and 
make-up  in  general.  A  large  number  of  single-column 
heads  will  give  the  paper  a  newsier  appearance  than 
two-  or  three-column  heads  do.  There  will  be  few 
occasions  when  a  country  paper  will  need  a  two-column 
head,  though  it  may  be  used  in  a  single  deck,  boxed, 
for  the  head  of  a  feature  story. 

The  heads  given  above  are  not  the  only  ones  which 
could  be  used,  of  course;  they  are  given  only  to  show 


202 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


or  suggest  a  set  of  heads  which  would  be  appropriate 
for  the  country  weekly.  There  are  many  variations 
of  these  heads  which  will  be  found  attractive,  but  the 
point  is  that  there  should  not  be  too  many  kinds  of 
heads  used  in  the  make-up  of  the  paper.  It  is  likely 
that  the  five  types  of  heads  as  given  above  will  be  suf- 
ficient for  any  country  paper,  and  that  the  paper  will 
be  more  attractive  if  no  more  than  five  varieties  are 
used. 

Building  a  Headline. — After  a  story  is  written, 
the  editor  has  to  decide  its  relative  importance  among 
the  stories  of  the  week  and  determine  its  place  in  the 
make-up  and  the  kind  of  head  he  shall  build  for  it. 
His  story  is  as  follows : 


Barton  is  to  have  a  park  at  last.  The 
Village  Board  in  regular  session  last 
evening  voted  to  buy  the  Downer  Wood- 
land property  of  thirty  acres  along  the 
creek  at  the  north  edge  of  town.  The 
consideration  was  $5,000. 

For  several  years  the  Women's  Home 
Improvement  Club  has  been  urging  that 
the  town  acquire  the  property,  which 
has  been  used  as  sort  of  general  dump- 
ing ground,   and  make  a  park  of  it. 

Work  will  begin  at  once.  All  refuse 
and  dead  wood  will  be  cleared  away, 
winding  gravel  paths  will  be  laid  out, 
a  concrete  dam  built  across  the  creek, 
and  bathing-  and  boat-houses  erected. 
Many  of  the  citizens  have  promised  to 
donate  labor,  and  the  new  improvements 
will  be  inexpensive. 

By  next  spring  Barton  will  have  an 
attractive  little  park  for  picnics,  boat- 
ing and  bathing — and  all  within  the 
town  limits.  The  Women's  Home  Im- 
provement Club  is  to  be  congratulated 
on  the  success  of  its  campaign. 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    203 


The  next  thing  the  editor  must  do  is  to  select  the 
facts  which  he  wishes  to  "play  up''  in  the  headline. 
The  following  facts  strike  him  as  being  acceptable 
headline  material: 

Village  Board  will  buy  Downer  Woodland  for  $5,000. 
Women  have  won  their  campaign. 
Work  will  be  started  soon. 
Dam  will  be  built  and  property  improved. 

He  decides  that  the  story  is  important  enough  for  a 
No.  I  head.  He  glances  at  the  printed  card  of  model 
heads  lying  on  his  desk  and  notes  that  there  is  room 
in  the  first  deck  of  a  No.  i  for  15  units;  in  the  second 
deck,  for  10  words;  in  the  third  for  20  units;  and  in 
the  fourth  for  15  words.  He  knows  that  the  first  and 
the  third  decks  will  catch  the  eye  by  their  larger  type 
and  that  he  will  have  to  put  the  most  important  facts 
in  these  decks.  He  finally  writes  the  headline  as  fol- 
lows : 


PARK  IS  CERTAIN: 
WOMENTRIUMPH 

VILLAGE   BOARD    VOTES   TO 

BUY  DOWNER  WOODLAND 

FOR  $5,000 


WORK   TO  BEGIN  SOON 


Concrete   Dam   to   Be   Built   and   Prop- 
erty Beautified  in  Many 
Ways. 


14^  units 

14     units 
9  words 

18  units 
II  words 


204  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Rules  for  Headline  Writing. — It  is  extremely  dif- 
ficult to  lay  down  rules  for  the  correct  writing  of 
heads.  The  rules  which  apply  to  newspaper  style  in 
general  pretty  nearly  cover  the  exigencies  of  head-writ- 
ing. Following  are  some  suggestions,  however,  which 
may  be  of  assistance  to  the  head-writer.  These  sug- 
gestions do  not  cover  the  whole  field  exactly ;  they  are 
not  hard-and-fast  rules.  They  only  point  the  way  to 
a  more  careful  consideration  of  headline  writing  in 
the  country  field: 

( 1 )  Heads  should  be  clear,  concise,  and  interesting. 

(2)  Play  up  the  '"feature"  of  the  story. 

(3)  Avoid  the  trite,  the  awkward,  the  ambiguous. 

(4)  Do  not  editorialize  in  the  headline,  but  preserve 

faithfully  the  tone  and  spirit  of  the  story. 

(5)  Make  careful  choice  of  words  and  adhere  strictly 

to  accepted  usage. 

(6)  Avoid  all  forms  of  repetition. 

.(7)  Be  sure  to  have  a  verb  in  the  first  deck;  and  in 
every  deck  if  possible.  You  cannot  express  ac- 
tion without  verbs. 

(8)  As  a  general  rule,  use  present  tense  when  refer- 

ring to  the  past.     To  express  the  future,  use 
future  tense  or  the  infinitive.  ^ 

(9)  Use  abbreviations  sparingly,  and  never  use  an  ab- 

breviation in  a  headline  which  would  not  be  ap- 
propriate in  the  story. 

(10)  When  using  caps  and  lower  case  letters,  capital- 

ize every  word  except  articles,  prepositions, 
and  conjunctions. 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    205 

(11)  Avoid  ending  an  important  line  with  a  preposi- 

tion, the  sign  of  the  infinitive,  or  a  hyphen. 
Try  to  make  your  lines  ''break  by  sense/' 

(12)  Never  begin  a  deck  with  "A/'  "An,"  or  'The." 

(13)  Pay  careful  attention  to  "whiting  out.''     Don't 

leave  too  much  white  space  at  the  end  of  the 
lines  or  between  decks. 

(14)  Don't  make  your  headlines  too  large. 

(15)  See  that  your  headlines  harmonize  typographi- 

cally with  the  body  type. 

*'Lazy'^  Headlines. — One  of  the  chief  reasons  why 
headline  writing  is  not  of  higher  standard  is  that  the 
writers  do  not  take  enough  time  to  secure  good  re- 
sults. The  heads  in  a  country  paper  are  comparatively 
few,  and  the  necessity  for  writing  them  arises  only 
once  a  week.  Hence  the  country  editor  does  not  get 
so  much  practice  in  head-writing  as  is  necessary  to 
make  him  expert.  It  is  hard,  slow  work  for  an  inex- 
perienced man  to  count  out  units  mechanically  to  see  if 
he  can  make  a  head  fit,  and,  since  he  is  so  busy  at  other 
things,  he  is  tempted  to  take  the  first  head  that  will  fit 
the  line  at  all  and  let  it  go  at  that.  He  feels  sure 
that  his  public  is  interested  in  what  he  puts  into  the 
paper,  and  that  it  does  not  need  to  be  urged  by  the 
means  of  well-written  headlines  into  reading  the 
stories.  He  probably  is  right  about  the  intrinsic  value 
of  the  news  content  to  his  readers,  but  he  is  mistaken 
if  he  assumes  that  he  does  not  need  to  be  careful  about 
the  sort  of  heads  he  prepares  for  his  paper.  The  right 
kind  of  headlines  wull  improve  the  appearance  of  his 


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THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


paper  and  will  serve  the  same  purpose  that  a  well-set 
advertisement  serves.  Even  if  the  merchant  has  the 
best  bargains  possible,  he  wants  his  advertising  to  be 
of  such  attractive  appearance  that  people  will  be  drawn 
to  read  it.  The  same  should  be  true  of  the  country  edi- 
tor; anything  that  is  worth  doing  at  all,  is  worth  do- 
ing well. 

Specific  Headline  Faults. — Following  are  some 
heads  collected  to  show  specifically  faults  which  are 
very  common  in  the  headHnes  of  the  country  weekly. 
With  one  or  two  exceptions,  these  heads  were  all 
clipped  from  country  papers. 


(i)  Repetition 
The  second  bank 
of  the  head  repeats 
part  of  the  first 
bank  word  for 
word.  The  head- 
line is  well  spaced, 
but  the  second 
bank  is  hastily 
done. 


BADGERS  TO  MEET 
SICKERS  IN  FINAL 
GAME  OF  SEASON 


Both  Teams  Ready  for  Pinal 
Game  of  Season;  Hard  Game  Is 
Expected 


Today's  Is  Seventh  of  Series  Be- 
tween Schools ;  Each  Institution 
Claims  Three  Victories 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    ^07 


(2)  Awkward 

The  *'very  worth 
while"  gives  an 
awkward  turn  to 
the  headline.  The 
whiting  of  the  first 
deck  could  be 
greatly  improved. 


TALKS  OF  THINGS 

VERY  WORTH  WHILE 


A    Synopsis    of    An    Address    Here    by 
Rev.  W.  A.  RoweU  of  Beloit 


Rev.  W.  A.  Rowell  of  Beloit  and 
Rev.  H.  A.  Schuder  of  Elkhorn  vis- 
ited the  Congregational  Church  of 
Whitewater  last  Friday  evening.  They 
came  to  represent  the  other  Congrega- 


(3)  Use  of  Words 

The  use  of  the 
word  *'i  n  m  a  t  e" 
here  is  vague  and 
unsatis  facto  r  y. 
K  e  adwriters 
should  use  specific 
words. 


(I) 
INMATE  IN  THRILLING 

MORNING  AUTO  CHASE 


COMPELS  KEEPER  TO  UNLOCK  HAND- 

CUFrS  AND  MAKES  DASH  FOR 

NEW    YORK 


Here  the  use  of  the 
English  word 
"feet"  with  the 
French  word 
"fete"  is  not  good. 
It  has  the  air  of 
being  a  conscious 
play  on  words.  It 
is  too  obvious. 


(2) 
MANY  NIMBLE  FEET 

AT  WOODMAN  PETE 


Foresters     Again     Demonstrate     That 

They're    "There"   With  The 

Entertainment  Stuff 


SUPPER      SERVED      TO      OVER      550 


Old 


Highcostaliving    Was   Ignored   in 
Preparation  of  Feed  for 
Their  Guests 


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THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


The  use  of  the 
word  ''nearby"  is 
incorrect.  It 
should  never  be 
used  as  an  adjec- 
tive. It  is  appar- 
ent that  the  word 
was  used  because 
it  fitted  the  meas- 
ure. 


(3) 


INDIANS  ASSUME 
NEAR-BY  WINTER 
WILL  BE  WARM 


(4)  Tone 

The  whole  tone  of 
this  head  is  "anti- 
social/* because  it 
treats  a  serious 
matter  with  flip- 
pancy. 


Rev.  C.  O.  Booth 
Canned  by  His 
Congregation 

Sheboygan  Pastor,  Who  Tore  Up  Re- 
signation, is  Ousted — Friend  Wife 
Brands  Husband's  Conduct  as  "Rid- 
iculous." 


(5)  Vagueness 

This  is  vague. 
Even  the  specifica- 
tion in  ^he  second 
deck  is  not   clear. 


(I) 
STARS  AT  GREEN  BAY 

Twenty-One    From    Here    Visit    Sister 
Chapter  and  Exemplify  Work 

Twenty-one  members  of  the  O.  E. 
S.  went  from  here  last  Monday  and 
paid    a    fraternal    visit    to    Green    Bay 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    209 


This  head  does  not 
even  tell  who  the 
principals  were. 
The  feature  of  the 
story  was  not 
played  up.  The 
head  looks  as  if 
part  of  it  were 
missing. 


(2) 


ARE  WEDDED  BY  REV. 
M.  H.  HEGGE  TODAY 


This  head  does  not 
tell  its  story  at  all. 
Even  a  close  study 
does  not  reveal  all 
the  facts.  One  has 
to  begin  reading 
the  story  before  he 
knows  what  it  is 
all  about.  The 
whiting  out  is  very 
poorly  done  in  the 
first  deck. 


(3) 


MC  MANUS 
ISfOR  MAN 

BEAUTIFUL  SCENES 


'*He*s  the  Noble  Who  Advances 
Freedom  and  the  Cause  of  Man" 


Ireland  a  Leader  in  Learning  and  Art 
and  in  Spreading  Christianity  Be- 
fore the  Blight  of  English  Oppress- 
ion Struck  Her — ^Irish  Leaders  Great 
Patriots  and  Men   of  Courage. 


The  great  virtue  in  the  lecture  of 
Suemas  McManus  was  the  fact  that 
he  spoke  for  human  Freedom.  He  may 
not  be  a  silver-tongued  orator,  but  he 


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THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


(6)  Triteness 

All  these  heads  are 
trite  and  full  of 
"fine  w  r  i  t  i  n  g." 
False  or  affected 
sentimentality  has 
no  place  in  a  news- 
paper headline. 


(I) 


EXCHANGE  NUPTIAL  VOWS 


YOUNG   HEARTS   THAT   IN   THE 

FUTURE  WILL  BEAT 

AS  ONE 


Froehlich — ^Prochnow, 
One  of  the  prettiest   weddings   ever 


(2) 


HYMENEAL  HAPPENINGS. 


LIFE'S    HAPPIEST    EVENT    DAWNED 
UPON  YOUNG  COUPLES 


Hembel — Ganns. 

Miss  Bertha  Ganns,  a  daughter  of 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Andrew  Ganns  of  Town 
Polk,  and  Oscar  Hembel,  a  son  of  Mr. 


%? 


(3) 


THE  EVER  BUSY  REAPER. 


MRS.  NIC.  WEBER  OF  NABOB  AMONG 

THOSE     WHO     WERE 

GARNERED 


Mrs.  Nic.  Weber. 

Mrs.  Mary  Weber,  one  of  the  pioneer 
residents  of  the  town  of  Barton,  died 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    an 


(4) 


(7)  Lack  of  Verb 

This  is  an  example 
of  a  "run-on" 
head.  The  first 
three  decks  would 
make  a  complete 
sentence  if  there 
were  a  verb.  The 
use  of  the  abbrevi- 
ation for  Christ- 
mas is  objection- 
able. Typographi- 
cally the  head  is 
good. 


(8)  Punctuation 

The  fault  here  is 
obvious.  There 
should  have  been  a 
semicolon  at  the 
end  of  the  first 
line. 


DEMON  FIRE  WAS  AT  WORK 


BOLTONVILLE        HAD        CONFLA- 
GRATION LAST  WEDNESDAY 
EVENING 


Last   week   Wednesday   even   a   con- 
flagration  threatened   to   wipe   out   the 


COMMINITY  XMAS 
TREE  AND  PROGRAM 


ON    THE    EVENING    OF    CHRISTMAS 
DAY 


AT   MAIN   STREET   CORNERS 


Small  Christmas  Trees  to  Line  Streets 

in    Front    of    Business 

Houses. 

Oconomowoc's  community  Christ- 
mas tree  is  now  assured  and  the  ar- 
rangements are  progressing  for  the 
event.  The  tree  will  be  bright  with 
electric    lights    and    Christmas    adorn- 

LIGHTNING  HITS 
BARN  IS  BIRNED 

HENRY  VOSKUEL  SUFFERS  LOSS   OF 

BARN,  TOOLS  AND  AUTO  WHEN 

LIGHTNING  STRIKES. 

During  the  electrical  storm  last 
Thursday  evening  lightning  struck  the 
barn  on  the  Henry  Voskuel  place  just 
south  of  town,  and  before  the  fire  de- 


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THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


(9)  Tense 

It  IS  permissible  to 
use  the  present 
tense  to  express 
past  action,  but  not 
in  connection  with 
a  word  which  spec- 
ifies past  time. 


(10)  "Whiting 
Out" 

There  is  too  much 
white  space  in  the 
second  Hne.  Also, 
the  spelling  might 
be  improved. 


Two  and  three  are 
examples  of  the 
label  head.  The 
spacing  in  all  these 
heads  is  carelessly 
done.  They  are 
good  examples  of 
"lazy"  headlines. 


(I) 
HEAVY  SNOW  STORM 

ENGULFS  SECTION 

ALL  DAY  SUNDAY 


One  of  the  heaviest  snow  storms  in 
twenty  years  swept  over  this  section 
on    Sunday,    the    wind    continuing    all 

(2) 
PRETTY  WEDDING 

OCCURS  SATURDAY 

IN  THIS  CITY 

A  very  pretty  home  wedding  oc- 
curred on  Saturday  morning,  Jan.  20, 
at  the  home  of   Mr.   and   Mrs.   Frank 


BORN  m 


LSAGE 


LORRIANE 


Citizen  of  Three  Nations  Passed 

Away  Last  Week  at  Cottage 

Hospital 


FRENCH,  GERMAN,  AMERICAN 

TRAaOR ' 

DEMONSTRATION 

WITH  THE 
CHEESE  MEN 


COPY-READING— HEADLINE  WRITING    213 


This  is  typographi- 
cally displeasing. 
Aside  from  the 
poor  whiting,  the 
contrast  of  con- 
densed and  extend- 
ed type  is  not  good. 
The  first  deck  is  a 
label  head ;  the  sec- 
ond defies  classifi- 
cation. The  head 
as  a  whole  is  clum- 
sy and  weak. 


PREHY     AITIMNAL 
WEDDING. 

THOS.    H.    CAMPBELL   A 

FORMER  SHULLS- 

BURG  BOY  AND 

MRS.  MARY 

IMMEL. 

WILL  RESIDE  IN  MENOMINEE. 


(11)    Hanging  In- 
dention First 
Bank 

This  form  of  head 
should  never  be 
used  for  the  first 
bank.  It  is  awk- 
ward in  appear- 
ance. 


Cylon  Man  Loses 
4  Fingers  in  a 
Corn  Shredder 


louis  Klawitter  Hurt  Tuesday  After- 
noon While  at  Work  on  His  Farm — 
His  Own  Presence  of  Mind  Saves 
Great  Loss  of  Blood — Fingers  Were 
Crushed  and  Amputation  Necessary. 


Louis  Klawitter  of  Cylon,  lost  the 
four  fingers  and  a  part  of  his  thumb 
on  his  right  hand  when  it  was  caught 
in  the  blower  of  a  corn  shredder  at 
work  on  his  farm,  Tuesday  afternoon. 


214 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


(12)    "Salad" 
Head 

This  head  is  a 
cloudy  mixture  of 
about  everything  in 
the  story.  It  is 
vague,  uninterest- 
ing, and  poorly 
done  in  general. 


TRAVELING 
LIBRARIES 

Annual  Meeting  of  Board  Held 
Officers  Reelected 


NUMBER    OF    LIBRARIES,    38 


Necessary    to    Borrow    Thirteen 

Prom  State — Five  More  Than 

Last  Year — Statistics 


(13)    Violation  of 

Typographical 

Harmony 

Aside  from  being 
poorly  whited,  this 
head  is  set  in  type 
which  is  too  large 
to  be  run  next  to 
body  type. 


RICHLAND  COINTY 
MAN  KILLED 
BY  A  BLOW 

Daniel  McCarthy,  about  thirty  years 
old,  was  almost  instantly  killed  in  Caze- 
novia,    Richland    County,    last    evening, 


CHAPTER  IX 
CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS 

The  *' Corner  Stone  of  Prosperity." — The  pros- 
perity of  the  country  weekly  is  built  upon  the  corner 
stone  of  circulation.  It  is  quite  true  that  when  the  cost 
of  materials  is  high,  the  circulation  revenue  will  bring 
in  little  or  no  profit  to  the  editor.  But  unless  the  circu- 
lation is  large  enough  to  cover  the  local  trade  zone  thor- 
oughly, there  will  be  little  revenue  from  advertising; 
and  advertising  is  the  main  source  of  profit  in  any 
newspaper  venture.  If  the  newspaper  circulates  widely 
in  a  good  community,  there  is  ample  opportunity  for 
the  wide-awake  editor  to  get  both  local  and  national 
advertising.  Building  and  maintaining  a  circulation, 
then,  is  one  of  the  first  duties  of  the  publisher,  and 
one  which  he  cannot  aflford  to  neglect  if  he  wishes  to 
have  continued  prosperity  and  success. 

I.     Building  a  Circulation 

Pleasing  the  Public. — It  is  obvious  that  any  prod- 
uct, in  order  to  sell,  must  first  please  the  possible  buyer. 
There  are  some  kinds  of  business  where  the  profit 
comes  from  the  first  sale,  and  where  the  salesman  does 
not  need  a  repeat  order ;  but  the  newspaper  business  is 

215 


21 6  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

not  of  this  kind.  After  the  publisher  has  sold  a  sub- 
scription, he  has  to  meet  his  obligation  in  fifty-two 
weekly  installments  and  these  must  have  merit  if  he 
is  to  get  the  contract  renewed.  No  newspaper  could 
do  a  profitable  business  if  a  complete  line  of  new  sub- 
scribers had  to  be  found  each  year.  In  short,  the 
newspaper  has  to  please  its  subscribers  all  the  time.  It 
is  the  old  vexed  problem  again  of  giving  the  public 
what  it  wants. 

To  the  country  editor,  giving  the  public  what  it 
wants  means  neither  more  nor  less  than  giving  it  the 
best  sort  of  country  journalism.  For  what  the  people 
really  want  in  a  country  paper  is  the  news  of  the  com- 
munity and  of  neighboring  communities  written  in  a 
fair,  impartial  manner.  The  country  public  does 
not  want  sensational,  highly-colored,  salacious  news. 
George  W.  Wagenseller,  editor  and  publisher  of  the 
Middlehiirgh  (Pennsylvania)  Post,  perhaps  the  most 
conspicuously  successful  country  weekly  in  America, 
declared  before  the  Pennsylvania  State  Editorial  as- 
sociation that  giving  the  people  the  kind  of  paper  they 
want  to  read  was  the  basis  of  his  circulation  success. 
The  Post,  published  in  a  county  where  there  are  less 
than  20,000  people,  has  a  circulation  of  over  6,000, 
though  there  are  several  other  country  papers  in  com- 
petition. The  Post  is  a  good  example  of  the  sort  of 
paper  country  people  like  to  read ;  it  is  full  of  news  and 
plays  up  names  and  county  correspondence.  It  is  dis- 
tinctly a  home  paper. 

Selling  the  Product. — Too  many  country  publish- 
ers have  assumed  that  all  that  is  necessary  to  build 


J  CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  217 

a  paying  circulation  is  to  get  out  a  paper  that  will  meet 
the  approval  of  the  community  where  it  is  designed  to 
circulate.  Unfortunately,  this  is  not  true.  The  psy- 
chology of  salesmanship  shows  that  people  need  to  be 
urged  to  buy  even  those  things  which  they  know  are 
good,  and  which  they  can  profitably  use.  Farming  can- 
not be  carried  on  effectively  without  modern,  improved 
farming  machinery;  yet  the  implement  dealer  adver- 
tises his  wares  and  talks  his  business  to  the  farmers. 
His  implements  may  be  good  and  the  farmer  may  have 
a  genuine  need  for  them,  but  in  order  to  make  his 
volume  of  sales  satisfactory,  the  dealer  emphasizes  the 
farmer's  need,  and  shows  the  excellence  of  the  imple- 
ments. 

The  editor  may  be  getting  out  the  best  paper  pos- 
sible and  yet  have  an  unsatisfactory  circulation  list. 
People  need  to  be  shown.  The  editor  should  point  out 
the  excellences  of  his  paper  just  as  the  dealer  in  farm- 
ing machinery  shows  the  good  points  of  his  imple- 
ments. The  editor  must  emphasize  the  good  that  his 
paper  will  do  the  prospective  reader  just  as  the  imple- 
ment dealer  points  out  to  the  prospective  buyer  the 
advantage  that  will  accrue  from  a  purchase  of  farm 
.  machinery.  Too  often  the  editor  fails  to  push  the  busi- 
ness side  of  his  circulation,  with  the  result  that  peo- 
ple grow  careless  of  the  merits  of  his  product.  They 
seem  to  get  along  fairly  well  without  the  paper,  just  as 
the  farmer  can  **worry  along*'  with  old  machinery. 

It  is  this  type  of  editor-publisher  who  lets  things 
slip  down-grade  until  he  awakes  to  the  fact  that  his 
circulation  is  below  par  and  that,  as  a  result,  his  ad- 


21 8  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

vertising  revenue  is  far  from  satisfactory.  Then  he 
plunges  into  a  frenzy  of  circulation-building  and  gets 
someone  to  conduct  a  circulation  campaign  to  raise 
more  money.  These  campaigns  are  usually  success- 
ful in  raising  the  money;  but  too  often  the  major  part 
of  the  money  so  raised  goes  into  the  pocket  of  the 
campaign  manager,  and  the  editor  is  saddled  with  an 
increased  circulation  list  that  is  often  more  of  a  lia- 
bility than  an  asset.  The  only  businesslike  way  of 
building  and  maintaining  a  circulation  is  to  keep  at  it 
all  the  time.  Of  course  there  are  times  when  special 
effort  is  appropriate  and  necessary;  but  the  man  who 
keeps  after  things  pretty  steadily  is  usually  the  one  who 
makes  money  in  the  country  field.  Loose  ends  are 
fatal. 

Campaigns  for  New  Subscribers. — The  desire  to 
attract  well-paid  advertising  is  at  the  basis  of  prac- 
tically all  organized  efforts  to  attain  bulk  circulation. 
In  most  cases,  spectacular  campaigns  for  new  subscrib- 
ers have  resulted  from  two  causes:  (i)  The  editor's 
lack  of  initiative  in  pushing  the  paper  himself  by  per- 
sonal or  quasi-personal  solicitation;  and  (2)  the  edi- 
tor's willingness  to  let  some  plausible  stranger  cajole, 
him  into  believing  that  he  will  benefit  greatly  from  an 
organized  campaign  that  the  stranger  proposes.  It  is 
the  same  old  story  of  intermittent  energy  in  the  coun- 
try office.  There  are  so  many  things  to  think  of  and 
attend  to  that  the  editor  is  likely  to  give  full  energetic 
attention  to  but  one  thing  at  a  time.  It  may  be  the 
problem%of  country  correspondence;  it  may  be  the 
problem  of  the  job  office,  the  problem  of  costs,  or  the 


^  CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  219 

problem  of  circulation.  His  business  is  so  conducted 
that  his  power  is  not  applied  evenly  to  all  departments 
all  the  time.  As  a  result,  when  the  editor  begins  to  feel 
that  his  subscription  list  needs  attention,  it  seems 
easier  as  well  as  more  spectacular  to  get  some  "ex- 

^  pert"  to  do   this  work   for  him.     These  campaigns 
usually  involve  premiums  or  subscription  contests. 

Premiums. — Very  often  the  paper  that  makes  use 
of  premiums  or  contests  is  not  on  a  solid  financial  ba- 
sis. The  money  which  is  being  received  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  carry  on  the  paper  as  a  going  concern  and  yet 
the  editor  enters  into  a  plan  whereby  he  will  receive 
less  per  subscriber  per  year  in  the  hope  that  he  will  get 
more  circulation  and  make  up  the  deficit  by  bulk  and 
higher  advertising  rates.  The  editor  persuades  himself 
that  he  will  make  some  sacrifice  to  get  the  paper  into 
the  homes,  and  that  he  will  be  able  to  keep  it  there 
when  the  time  comes  for  a  renewal.  His  psychology 
is  usually  at  fault.  If  a  man  buys  a  suit  of  clothes  and 
is  given  a  present  of  a  shirt,  the  next  time  he  will  de- 
mand just  as  valuable  a  present  and  will  likely  take 
his  business  elsewhere  if  it  is  not  forthcoming.  If  a 
subscriber  gets  the  paper  and  a  ''silver"  spoon  the  first 

.  year,  he  is  likely  to  want  a  whole  set  of  spoons  when 
he  renews  his  subscription. 

The  whole  principle  of  the  thing  is  wrong;  we  don't 
get  something  for  nothing  in  this  world.  Rebates  of 
any  kind  cheapen  the  paper  in  the  eyes  of  the  reader 
and  foster  the  belief  that  there  is  so  great  a  profit  in 
conducting  a  newspaper  that  it  makes  little  difference 
whether  one  pays  his  subscription  or  not.    Premiums 


220  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

are  being  abandoned  generally  in  business  enterprises. 
In  some  states  the  legislatures  have  forbidden  the  use 
of  trading  stamps,  and  the  newspapers  have  inveighed 
against  them.  The  trading  stamp  is  no  different  in 
principle  from  the  premium  given  by  newspapers  to 
secure  subscribers. 

Contests. — Contests  aim  to  get  the  paper  into  the 
homes  of  as  many  readers  as  possible  by  the  means 
of  personal  solicitation.  Points  are  awarded  the  con- 
testants on  the  basis  of  the  amount  of  new-subscrip- 
tion and  renewal  money  they  bring  in.  Large  bonuses 
are  given  for  business  done  each  week  in  excess  of  a 
stated  amount. 

These  contests  present  more  difficulties  than  premi- 
ums because  they  involve  more  oeople  and  call  for  a 
bigger  outlay  of  money.  People  are  working  hard  all 
over  the  county  to  get  their  friends  to  help  them  win 
the  automobile,  grand  piano,  a  trip  to  California,  or 
whatever  it  is.  In  addition  there  are  many  minor 
prizes  that  cost  money,  but  which,  to  the  disappointed 
contestants,  seem  to  be*  poor  consolation  for  the  loss 
of  the  ''grand'*  prize.  There  is  rarely  a  word  said 
about  the  good  points  and  the  general  worthiness  of 
the  paper.  It  is  offered  cheaply,  and  many  people  in 
their  eagerness  to  help  a  friend  or  some  attractive 
young  lady,  buy  a  subscription  for  ten  to  twenty-five 
years  ahead,  thus  loading  up  the  paper  with  a  lot  of 
cheap  subscriptions  that  must  be  met  for  years  to  come. 
Much  of  the  income  from  these  contests  goes  into  the 
campaigri  but  the  obligation  of  the  editor  extends  over 
a  term  of  years. 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  221 

Such  contests,  too,  almost  invariably  excite  anger 
and  indignation  against  the  paper.  If  the  contest  is 
close,  the  friends  of  the  defeated  contestants  are  likely 
to  feel  that  they  have  not  been  treated  equitably  by 
the  editor  or  his  committee  of  vote-counters.  Such 
heart  burnings  and  gossip  are  sure  to  hurt  the  paper. 
Again,  these  contests  are  open  to  all  and  the  editor  has 
no  right  of  selection  in  his  force  of  solicitors.  Irre- 
sponsible people  in  the  heat  of  the  canvass  often  make 
promises  the  paper  cannot  fulfill.  This  is  an  additional 
source  of  friction  which  often  kills  all  chance  of  re- 
newal of  business  when  the  subscriptions  expire. 

More  and  more  the  contest  is  coming  into  disfavor 
among  publishers,  and  they  are  beginning  to  see  that 
close,  careful  business  methods  are  the  logical  and 
profitable  substitutes  for  these  campaigns  which  enrich 
no  one  but  the  promoter  and  leave  the  editor  with  a  lot 
of  subscribers  who  have  paid  in  advance  for  long 
terms  and  who  do  not  care  for  the  paper.  The  only 
way  that  he  can  hope  to  play  even  at  all  is  by  the  in- 
crease of  advertising  rates,  and  even  that  is  not  so  cer- 
tain as  it  used  to  be,  for  advertisers  are  beginning 
to  talk  now  about  "quality  circulation,''  and  there  is  a 
growing  tendency  to  consider  contest  circulation  of  an 
inferior  quality. 

The  Courier-Herald  of  Lincoln,  Illinois,  made  a 
close  investigation  of  these  methods  of  building  circu- 
lation and  presented  the  following  conclusions : 

(i)  No  newspaper  has  ever  conducted  a  circulation 
contest  that  did  not  cost  at  least  35  per  cent  of  the  gross 
receipts.    The  newspaper  paying  this  much  for  its  circu- 


222  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

lation  cannot  afford  to  give  its  readers  any  expensive 
news  service. 

(2)  Circulation  secured  in  a  contest  is  not  bona  fide, 
because  the  subscriptions  are  not  secured  on  the  merits 
of  the  newspaper.  Most  subscriptions  and  orders  are 
given  to  help  some  contestant. 

(3)  A  circulation  that  must  be  held  by  the  means  of 
flattering  inducements  is  not  a  bona  fide  circulation.  A 
newspaper  constantly  offering  special  inducements  admits 
its  difficulty  in  holding  its  subscribers. 

(4)  Premiums  cost  anywhere  from  ten  to  forty  per 
cent  of  the  subscription  price.  The  publisher  must  save 
the  money  in  some  other  way.  He  cannot  curtail  his 
expense  without  lessening  his  service  to  advertisers  and 
subscribers. 

(5)  A  good  part  of  the  money  secured  in  subscription 
contests  or  through  premiums  leaves  the  city  never  to 
return. 

For  these  and  other  reasons  the  Lincoln  Courier-Her- 
ald will  not  conduct  any  circulation  contest  in  the  future, 
nor  will  it  offer  its  subscribers  any  premium  for  paying 
their  year's  subscriptions.  Money  which  would  be  re- 
quired to  pay  for  the  prizes  or  for  the  odds  and  ends 
which  are  usually  offered  as  premiums  will  be  spent  on 
service  to  the  advertisers  and  subscribers. 

Psychology  of  the  Contest. — When  we  go  into  a 
store  to  buy  a  pair  of  shoes,  we  usually  accept  the  deal- 
er's statement  as  to  the  selling  price.  We  assume  that 
it  represents  the  cost  plus  a  legitimate  profit.  If  he 
were  to  offer  special  inducements  to  the  buying  public 
in  general,  we  should  likely  think  (i)  that  his  goods 
are  not  worth  the  market  price,  and  (2)  that  there 
is  a  tremendous  profit  in  selling  shoes.  The  editor 
should  have  a  paper  that  is  worth  the  money  he  asks 
for  it,  attd  should  no  more  cut  his  rate  than  should 
the  merchant.     The  new  country  editor  should  be  a 


-  CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  223 

i 
business  man.  He  does  not  need  to  ask  people  to  "sup- 
port'' him  any  more  than  does  the  merchant  or  the  law- 
yer or  the  doctor.  He  has  a  manufactured  produce  to 
sell  and  he  should  adopt  a  businesslike  attitude  toward 
his  work  and  toward  the  problems  of  salesmanship. 
It  inevitably  hurts  a  man's  business  and  professional 
prestige  if  he  is  continually  whining  for  ''support" 
from  the  community. 

R.  T.  Porte,  in  the  Inland  Printer,  says : 

As  a  business  proposition  there  is  no  question  but  that 
a  contest  is  entirely  wrong,  as  it  has  a  tendency  to  de- 
preciate the  value  of  the  paper  from  a  money  standpoint. 
To  see  one-thousand-dollar  automobiles,  five-hundred- 
dollar  pianos,  trips  to  New  York,  and  the  like  offered  for 
getting  a  few  yearly  subscriptions  to  a  paper  tends  to 
impress  on  the  public  that  there  is  an  enormous  profit  in 
publishing  a  paper ;  and  that  the  subscription  price  is  al- 
together too  high.  And  on  top  of  that,  to  see  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  paper  himself  without  an  automobile  .or  a 
five-hundred-dollar  piano  of  his  own  tends  to  cast  a  re- 
flection on  him  as  a  business  man. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  opinion  among  publishers 
is  divided  concerning  the  advisability  of  holding  con- 
tests, but  there  is  an  unmistakable  and  pronounced  ten- 
dency to  get  away  from  the  old  idea  of  "giving  some- 
thing for  nothing,"  or  of  bribing  people  to  take  the 
paper. 

Clubbing  Offers. — Practically  every  country  paper 
makes  a  specialty  of  clubbing  offers.  These  papers 
give  up  good  white  space  to  advertising  some  city  pa- 
per, magazine,  or  farm  publication.  There  seems  to 
be  no  good  reason  why  the  country  publisher  should 


224  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

give  up  this  valuable  space  without  pay,  order  the  mag- 
azine or  paper  desired  by  the  subscriber,  and  then  take 
all  the  complaints  that  come  if  the  paper  or  maga- 
zine does  not  appear  regularly.  It  is  granted  that  the 
editor  can  make  a  little  money  this  way — a  few  cents 
on  each  subscription.  But  in  ninety  per  cent  of  the 
cases  the  money  made  will  not  pay  for  one-tenth  of  the 
value  of  the  advertising  space  used.  It  is  a  good  thing 
for  people  to  have  these  city  papers,  magazines,  and 
farm  journals.  But  the  country  weekly  should  not  sac- 
rifice a  part  of  its  income-bearing  space  in  order  to 
increase  the  business  of  the  big  publisher.  If  these  city 
concerns  wish  to  place  their  publications  in  the  hands 
of  the  people  of  a  certain  community,  the  proper  way 
and  the  fair  way  to  do  it  is  to  advertise  in  the  local 
paper  at  the  regular  advertising  rates. 

Recently  a  great  stir  was  caused  among  country  edi- 
tors by  the  proposal  of  the  Curtis  Publishing  Company 
that  they  run  a  small  advertisement  in  return  for  a 
13  weeks'  subscription  to  the  Country  Gentleman,  a 
publication  that  sells  for  $1.00  a  year.  Of  course  the 
cost  of  the  space  was  far  in  excess  of  the  value  of 
the  Country  Gentleman  for  three  months.  Such  a 
proposition  was  absurd,  but  the  advertising  manager 
of  the  Curtis  publication  stated  that  about  fifty  per 
cent  of  the  country  publishers  accepted  the  offer.  If 
the  statement  was  true,  fifty  per  cent  of  the  country 
publishers  were  ''playing  the  other  man's  game,"  and 
that  is  something  the  country  editor  must  stop.  Space 
is  worth  nioney  and  money  should  be  demanded  in  ex- 
change for  it.    Get  the  money  for  your  circulation  and 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  225 

for  your  advertising  and  then  spend  it  for  what  you 
wish;  but  don't  barter  with  the  big  fellows  and  give 
them  free  advertising  on  clubbing  offers,  for  they  are 
pretty  likely  to  have  a  joker  up  their  sleeve. 

Out  Rates. — Some  papers  have  adopted  the  method 
of  getting  a  quick  increase  in  circulation  by  offering 
reduced  rates  if  the  paper  is  ordered  by  a  certain  time. 
Usually  these  offers  come  in  the  autumn  when  more 
reading  is  being  done  in  the  community.  For  the  price 
of  a  year's  subscription  the  editor  will  extend  the  sub- 
scription until  a  year  from  the  following  January. 
These  offers  are  very  common  during  the  months  of 
November  and  December.  Thus  the  editor  gives  his 
paper  thirteen  or  fourteen  months  for  the  price  of 
twelve  months.  It  is  not  good  business.  It  is  charg- 
ing off  against  the  year  following  some  of  the  expense 
incurred  this  year.  It  is  not  a  good  advertisement 
for  the  paper  nor  for  the  business  acumen  of  the  editor. 

Another  form  of  cut  rates  not  quite  so  general  is  the 
Bargain  Day  Rate.  Peter  J.  Vasaly,  of  the  Little  Falls 
(Minnesota)  Herald^  gives  his  experience  with  this 
method : 

The  last  big  subscription-getter  which  the  Herald 
worked  was  "Bargain  Days/'  which  was  in  the  fall  of 
1905.  We  selected  two  days  on  which  the  Herald  could 
be  purchased  for  one  year  for  25  cents.  Seems  ridicu- 
lous, doesn't  it?  But  to  secure  the  paper  for  this  price, 
it  was  necessary  for  the  delinquents  to  pay  up  their  back 
dues.  As  a  consequence,  although  the  second  day  was 
stormy,  we  collected  hundreds  of  dollars  and  secured 
over  600  new  subscribers,  many  of  whom  have  paid  into 
the  treasury  of  our  concern  $6.25  for  the  five  years'  sub- 
scription, and  the  beauty  of  it  is  they  are  still  with  us. 


226  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

The  idea  is  to  get  them  on  the  list ;  the  merits  of  the  paper 
to  hold  them  after  you  do.  We  consider  that  if  a  col- 
lector can  get  us  a  new  name  for  the  price  of  a  year,  he 
has  done  satisfactory  work. 

The  plan  has  been  worked  with  fair  success  to  re- 
duce the  number  of  delinquents,  but  it  is  not  to  be 
strongly  recommended  for  the  purpose  of  general  cir- 
culation-building. It  will  be  noticed  that,  even  though 
it  was  entirely  satisfactory,  Mr.  Vasaly  had  not  tried 
it  again  up  to  the  time  of  the  above  statement  in  1909. 

Personal  Solicitation.— The  safest  way  to  increase 
circulation  is  by  the  personal  solicitation  method.  It 
is  surer  and  quicker  than  form-letters  and  circulars; 
it  is  more  profitable  than  the  contest  idea  and  not  so 
provocative  of  ill-feeling  and  misunderstanding.  If 
the  editor  has  neither  the  time  nor  the  inclination  to  do 
this  himself,  and  if  the  county  correspondents  do  not 
achieve  satisfactory  results  as  solicitors,  it  will  be  best 
to  get  some  active,  businesslike  person  well-known  in 
the  community  and  allow  him  a  good  rate  for  commis- 
sion. College  students  or  public  school  teachers  who 
wish  to  work  during  the  summer  vacation  usually  make 
very  good  solicitors.  And  the  summer  and  early  au- 
tumn are  the  best  times  for  this  sort  of  work.  The 
weather  and  road  conditions  make  it  easy  to  cover  the 
territory,  and  conditions  in  general  are  favorable  for 
the  canvass. 

Former-Resident  Subscribers. — Former  residents 
of  a  community  are  among  the  most  satisfactory  sub- 
scribers *a  paper  can  have,  although  they  do  not  help 
raise  advertising  rates,  since  they  live  outside  the  local 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  aa; 

trade  zone.  They  are  always  interested  in  the  doings 
of  the  friends  and  acquaintances  they  have  left  behind, 
and  are  not  so  likely  to  be  critical  as  are  the  subscrib- 
ers who  live  in  the  community.  The  editor  cannot  af- 
ford to  overlook  this  field  when  he  is  trying  to  build  a 
circulation.  The  method  employed  by  the  Fairfield 
(Illinois)  Press  is  a  good  one  and  deserves  special 
mention.     E.  H.  Childress,  the  editor,  says: 

As  the  best  single  feature  for  holding  old  subscribers 
and  particularly  the  nonresident  subscriber,  the  Press 
publishes  annually  the  first  week  in  February  what  we 
call  the  Pink  Press,  It  is  an  edition  devoted  almost 
wholly  to  letters  from  those  who  have  wandered  from 
our  home  county.  We  use  a  good  quality  of  calendar- 
finished  book  paper,  pink  in  color,  hence  the  name.  This 
year  (1916)  we  published  the  27th  annual  edition  of  the 
Pink  Press.  We  have  been  publishing  the  special  edition 
so  long  that  our  readers  know  who  and  what  to  write  for 
it,  and  it  is  made  the  means  thfough  which  the  many  hun- 
dreds who  have  left  the  county  the  past  twenty-five  years 
may  communicate  with  their  friends  back  home  and  with 
each  other.  It  is  likewise  greatly  appreciated  by  the  home 
folks.  W^e  charge  ten  cents  for  the  copies  sold  to  non- 
subscribers,  and  the  nonsubscriber  has  no  assurance  that 
he  will  get  a  copy,  for  now  and  then  we  limit  the  issue  to 
actual  subscribers.  Besides  being  a  most  readable  num- 
ber for  all  subscribers,  it  affords  a  splendid  opportunity 
for  the  nonresident  subscriber  to  send  along  the  annual 
remittance  for  subscription. 

W.  Clement  Moore,  of  the  Egypt  (New  Jersey) 
Press,  uses  the  following  form  which  he  publishes  as 
a  display  advertisement  in  his  paper : 

To  Our  Subscribers :  We  want  your  help.  Will  you 
do  this  for  us? 


228  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

We  are  anxious  to  tell  all  of  your  friends  and  relatives 
about  the  kind  of  a  town  we  have  here,  and  the  good 
things  we  are  doing  to  improve  it.  We  want  you  to  fill 
out  the  blanks  below  with  the  names  and  addresses  of 
people  whom  you  know  that  have  at  one  time  been  resi- 
dents of  this  place,  or  have  a  number  of  friends  and  rela- 
tives living  here  at  the  present  time.  We  will  send  each 
of  them  several  copies  of  the  Press  absolutely  without 
charge  to  them  or  you,  and  we  shall  greatly  appreciate 
your  kindness.  You  may  mail  this  to  us  or  hand  it  in  at 
the  office.  This  little  service  will  help  boost  our  town 
and  we  feel  sure  that  every  resident  will  be  willing  to 
help.    Thank  you.     . 


Name 

Address 


Other  Wa3rs  of  Securing  Subscribers. — The  coun- 
try editor  who  would  be  successful  as  a  subscription- 
builder  must  be  eternally  looking  for  chances  to  get 
subscribers.  He  must  have  a  list  of  prospects  on  hand 
all  the  time  and  must  keep  in  mind  that  his  paper 
should  contain  reading  matter  that  will  be  of  interest 
to  the  nonsubscriber  as  well  as  to  those  who  are  al- 
ready on  the  list.  If  something  concerning  these  peo- 
ple, or  something  which  the  editor  feels  sure  will  in- 
terest them  appears  in  the  paper,  a  marked  copy  should 
be  sent,  together  with  a  letter  or  a  form  pointing  out 
the  advantage  of  receiving  the  paper  every  week.  An- 
other good  plan  is  to  send  the  paper  gratis  for  a  month 
to  each  new  family  or  single  man  or  woman  that  comes 
to  the  community  to  live. 

These  I  methods  will  get  many  subscribers,  but  they 
cannot  be  allowed  to  lapse.    The  editor  must  continu- 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  229 

ally  be  at  work  building  up  his  list.  Otherwise  he  can 
scarcely  escape  the  necessity  of  building  a  big  list  in  a 
hurry  by  some  ''sure  fire"  contest  or  premium  scheme 
which  will  add  names  to  the  list  but  very  little  money 
to  the  editor's  bank  account. 

Some  country  editors  make  a  practice  of  noting  the 
marriages  that  take  place  among  the  people  in  their  ter- 
ritory and  always  send  the  bride  a  copy  of  the  paper 
with  the  suggestion  that,  no  doubt,  her  husband  will 
be  glad  to  subscribe  to  the  paper  so  that  she  may  get 
the  home  news  each  week.  The  psychology  of  th^s  is 
good,  for  very  few  newly-married  men  would  deny  a 
wife  the  home  paper  if  she  asked  for  it. 

Features  such  as  the  Pink  Press  mentioned  above  are 
good  circulation-builders.  All  features  do  not  need  to 
be  on  so  elaborate  a  scale  as  the  Pink  Press,  however ; 
any  good  local  feature  that  is  regular  will  be  a  draw- 
ing card.  If  people  begin  to  look  for  a  certain  feature 
in  the  paper  and  always  find  it  there,  it  will  be  a  pow- 
erful drawing  card  quite  aside  from  its  intrinsic  value. 
It  is  the  old  trick  of  making  the  public  like  something 
and  then  "giving  the  public  what  it  wants." 

11.    Subscription  Price  and  Collections 

Price  of  Subscriptions. — In  many  places  country 
editors  are  afraid  to  stand  out  for  what  they  consider 
a  fair  price  for  their  product.  Perhaps  this  is  in  part 
due  to  the  fact  that  most  of  them  who  do  not  use  a 
cost-finding  system  are  somewhat  in  doubt  concerning 
the  real  cost  of  the  paper.     If  the  editor  is  getting 


230  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

out  a  paper  that  is  a  credit  to  the  community,  he  is  en- 
titled to  a  subscription  that  will  at  least  go  far  toward 
paying  the  actual  cost  of  production. 

Every  week  the  editor  carries  advertisements  for  the 
merchants  in  which  prices  quoted  for  staple  articles  are 
materially  in  advance  of  the  same  articles  twenty  years 
ago.  The  editor  knows  that  his  supplies  cost  more 
than  they  formerly  did,  but  in  many  cases  he  holds  to 
the  old  price  of  the  paper  in  the  vain  hope  that  prices 
will  come  back  to  what  they  were  when  he  established 
the  subscription  price.  He  knows  that  he  ought  to 
charge  more  for  the  product  which  he  is  manufactur- 
ing but  he  often  lacks  the  courage  to  come  out  frankly 
and  raise  the  price.  A  dollar  a  year  never  was  enough 
to  charge  for  a  country  weekly  even  when  the  cost  of 
labor  and  materials  was  low.  Prices  of  labor  and  of 
practically  everything  else  have  risen  within  the  last 
twenty  years.  It  is  not  at  all  likely  that  prices  will 
ever  drop  to  what  they  were  in  1895.  There  will  be 
fluctuations,  but  the  day  of  four  cent  sugar  and  the 
dollar  newspaper  is  long  past. 

A  good  example  of  common-sense  methods  of  rais- 
ing the  price  of  a  paper  is  shown  in  the  case  of  the 
Barry  (Illinois)  Record.  When  the  present  owner 
bought  the  paper  six  years  ago,  he  raised  the  price 
from  $1.00  to  $1.50.  He  personally  visited  each  sub- 
scriber's home  and  told  him  the  reasons  for  the  in- 
crease.  He  pointed  out  that  the  former  owner  had 
operated  the  paper  at  a  loss  for  four  years  and  had 
finally  failed.  He  promised  that  he  would  get  out  a 
better  paper  that  would  be  worth  the  money.    The  sub- 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  231 

scribers  accepted  the  argument.  Then  he  went  to  the 
merchants  with  his  revised  $1.50  subscription  list  and 
raised  his  advertising  rate  in  proportion  to  the  in- 
creased subscription  price. 

The  country  editor  almost,  universally  underesti- 
mates his  value  to  the  community,  and  that  is  one  rea^ 
son  why  so  many  country  offices  are  operated  at  a  loss 
or  at  a  very  small  profit.  In  some  states  there  has 
been  a  very  well-defined  movement  to  increase  the  old 
price  of  $1.00  a  year.  An  examination  (1917)  of  100 
country  weeklies  published  in  Wisconsin  showed  the 
following  percentages : 

$1.00  a  year 4 

$1.00  a  year  in  advance 4 

$1.25  a  year 9 

$1.25  a  year  in  advance 5 

$1.50  a  year 41 

$1.50  a  year  in  advance 34 

$2.00  a  year   , 2 

$2.00  a  year  in  advance.  — I 

The  increase  in  price  in  this  state  is  going  on  all  the 
time  and  there  have  been  very  few  complaints  and 
slight  subscription  loss  because  of  the  advance.  Even 
some  of  the  poorest  papers  of  the  state  have  advanced 
into  the  $1.50  class  without  any  apparent  complaint  or 
loss  of  subscribers.  In  most  cases  the  editors  have 
stated  plainly  the  reason  for  the  increased  subscription 
price,  and  have  made  it  clear  that  it  was  a  case  of  ab- 
solute necessity.  The  following  editorial  announce- 
ment of  change  in  price  is  a  good  example  of  what 
may  be  seen  in  papers  all  over  the  country : 


232 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


•WHY  IT  IS  NECESSARY 

One  year  ago  the  publishers  of  this 
paper  were  paying  two  dollars  per  hun- 
dred for  print  paper  such  as  is  used 
for  issuing  the  Republican.  Late  ship- 
ments are  invoiced  at  six  dollars  per 
hundred  and  we  are  advised  that  the 
price  will  be  raised  soon.  Other  ma- 
terials, including  labor,  which  enter  into 
the  cost  of  production,  have  increased, 
though  probably  not  in  the  same  pro- 
portion. The  weekly  balance  sheet  of 
the  Republican  covering  the  cost  of  and 
receipts  from  the  newspaper  alone, 
shows  an  average  loss  approximating 
forty  dollars.  The  cost-finding  figures 
have  the  stamp  of  the  highest  author- 
ity in  the  world  and  cannot  be  ques- 
tioned. In  addition  to  this,  our  books 
are  audited  monthly  by  the  Wisconsin 
University  Service  to  Printers  and 
Publishers. 

The  Republican  believes  in  common 
with  others  that  much  of  the  price- 
boosting  which  has  taken  place  in  re- 
cent months  is  unnecessary  and  unfair. 
We  believe  that  the  price  which  we  are 
compelled  to  pay  for  print  paper  is  not 
justified,  but  we  are  helpless  as  are  all 
our  brother  publishers  who  are  unable 
to  buy  paper  mills  and  manufacture 
their  own  paper.  Our  only  recourse  is 
to  ask  our  patrons  to  meet  the  deficit 
which  appears  weekly  in  our  business, 
for  the  most  obtuse  person  can  see  that 
we  will  be  unable  to  continue  long  at 
the  present  weekly  loss.  We  assume 
that  Stanley  country  people  want  a 
good  home  paper,  just  as  good  a  paper 
as  any  community  has,  and  that  Stan- 
ley country  people  are  willing  to  pay 
for  it  what  people  are  paying  for  simi- 
lar service  in  other  localities.  We  do 
not  expect  them  to  do  more.  We  could 
give  the  people  a  cheaper  paper  but  we 
have  established  standards  which  we 
*must  maintain,  for  Stanley  country  peo- 
ple would  not  be  satisfied  with  a  cheaper 
paper. 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS 


233 


This  is  why  we  found  it  necessary  to 
announce  a  few  weeks  ago  that  on  Janu- 
ary I  the  price  of  the  Republican  would 
be  raised  to  $1.50  the  year.  We  desire 
that  all  our  old-time  friends  be  fully 
informed  of  the  conditions  which  com- 
pel our  action.  Our  books  and  cost  fig- 
ures are  open  to  our  patrons  at  all  times. 
We  solicit  your  friendly  cooperation  in 
placing  the  Republican  on  a  permanent 
basis. 

Cash-in-Advance  Subscription. — Within  the  past 
few  years  the  cash-in-advance  idea  has  been  growing 
in  popularity  and  many  of  the  best  papers  have  adopted 
it.  There  seems  to  be  no  good  reason  why  it  should 
not  be  in  general  use  among  country  publishers;  and 
there  are  several  reasons  why  it  should  be  adopted, 
(i)  If  the  circulation  list  is  on  a  cash-in-advance  ba- 
sis, the  editor  has  a  definite  budget  for  the  year  and 
can  more  closely  approximate  his  income  than  under 
the  old  loose-end  methods.  (2)  If  subscriptions  are 
paid  in  advance,  the  publisher  is  able  to  make  a  sure 
first  profit  by  discounting  his  bills  when  he  purchases 
new  materials ;  this  is  something  that  every  good  busi- 
ness man  should  do.  (3)  If  the  editor  is  ambitious  to 
get  advertising  of  nationally-marketed  products,  he 
stands  a  better  chance  of  getting  it  at  a  good  rate  than 
the  man  whose  circulation  books  are  a  tangle  of  paid 
and  unpaid  subscriptions ;  he  can  furnish  a  sworn  state- 
ment of  paid-up  subscriptions.  The  advertising  man 
knows  that  cash-in-ad^ance  circulation  indicates  sta- 
bility and  prosperity  among  the  readers,  and  prosper- 
ous people  are  the  ones  to  whom  he  wishes  to  appeal. 
(4)  Cash-in-advance  policy  will  remove  all  **dead 
wood"  frxDm  the  subscription  books.    Despite  the  gov- 


234 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


ernment  ruling  that  publishers  shall  not  carry  subscrib- 
ers more  than  a  year  after  the  expiration  of  the  sub- 
scription, the  books  often  carry  names  of  many  people 
whom  the  editor  has  carried  for  years  and  who  will 
not  pay  at  all.  This  kind  of  a  subscription  list  is  often 
more  of  a  liability  than  an  asset.  The  editor  should 
use  the  government  ruling  as  an  excuse,  if  he  needs 
one,  to  put  his  subscription  on  a  pay-in-advance  basis. 
The  quicker  he  can  get  rid  of  nonpaying  subscribers, 
the  better  business  it  is  for  him. 

An  extract  from  an  editorial  in  the  Manchester 
(Iowa)  Press  throws  an  interesting  light  on  the  losses 
which  publishers  run  the  risk  of  incurring  through  not 
adopting  and  enforcing  a  pay-in-advance  plan: 

The  Press  has  been  on  a  strictly  cash- 
in-advance  basis  for  more  than  two 
years.  During  the  forty-six  years  of  its 
existence,  the  losses  on  delinquent  sub- 
scriptions have  averaged  not  less  than 
$500  a  year,  or  a  total  of  more  than 
$20,000  lost  by  the  shiftless,  unjust,  and 
unprofitable  pay-as-you-please  system. 
Readers  of  a  newspaper  ought  not  to 
expect  a  publisher  to  stand  such  a  drain 
as  this.  We  have  found  that  nine- 
tenths  of  our  readers  prefer  the  cash- 
in-advance  system.  At  first  some  were 
inclined  to  misunderstand  it.  Some  took 
it  as  a  reflection  on  their  credit  which, 
of  course,  was  not  intended;  but  when 
they  learned  that  the  system  was  being 
applied  absolutely  without  favoritism 
and  to  every  name  on  the  list,  a  better 
understanding  was  reached.  People  do 
not  expect  the  Chicago  Tribune  or  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post  or  any  of  the 
better  class  of  periodicals  to  be  sent  to 
their  homes  without  being  paid  for  in 
^advance,  and  when  they  are  all  fair- 
minded,  they  will  just  as  readily  pay 
for  the  home  paper  in  advance. 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  235 

Of  course,  many  publishers  who  do  not  demand  cash 
in  advance  have  fairly  good  systems  for  collecting  back 
subscriptions.  But  none  of  these  systems  is  100  per 
cent  efficient  and,  in  addition,  it  costs  something  to 
have  the  collecting  or  the  attempt  at  collecting  done. 

The  best  business  methods  demand  that  a  cash-in- 
advance  basis  be  adopted.  After  all  other  considera- 
tions have  been  exhausted,  there  still  remains  the  fun- 
damental justice  of  the  thing.  When  the  editor  buys 
supplies  or  other  goods,  he  is  expected  to  pay  cash  for 
them.  When  he  buys  a  suit  of  clothes,  he  does  not  say 
to  the  tailor  or  the  dealer,  *T11  take  these  clothes  and 
wear  them  and  when  they  are  worn  out,  Til  pay  you 
for  them."  Yet  that,  in  effect,  is  what  the  subscriber 
says  who  takes  the  paper  and  promises  to  pay  for  it 
at  the  end  of  the  year.  The  clothing  merchant  has  to 
get  quick  turn-overs  for  cash  if  he  is  to  be  wholly  suc- 
cessful. The  grocer,  the  coal  merchant,  and  all  the 
rest  do  business,  if  at  all  possible,  on  the  cash  basis. 
The  editor  should  have  the  courage  of  his  beliefs  and 
do  the  same.  It  will  not  weed  out  the  good  subscrib- 
ers; it  will  cost  him  some  dead-heads  and  he  will  be 
better  off  without  them. 

The  following  ''fairy  tale''  which  is  pertinent  in  this 
connection  is  credited  to  the  H  or  ton  (Kansas)  Head- 
light: 

Once  a  farmer  had  1,800  bushels  of  wheat,  which  he 
sold,  not  to  one  grain  merchant,  but  to  1,800  different 
dealers,  a  bushel  to  each.  A  few  of  them  paid  cash,  but 
far  the  greater  number  said  they  would  pay  later.  A 
few  months  passed  and  the  man's  bank  account  ran  low. 
'*How  is  this?''  he  said,     ''My  1,800  bushels  of  grain 


236  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

should  have  kept  me  in  affluence  until  another  crop  is 
raised ;  but  I  have  parted  with  the  grain  and  instead  I 
have  a  vast  number  of  accounts  so  small  and  scattered 
that  I  cannot  get  around  and  collect  fast  enough  to  pay 
expenses."  So  he  posted  up  a  public  notice  and  asked  all 
those  who  owed  him  to  pay  quickly.  But  few  came.  The 
rest  said,  ''Mine  is  only  a  small  matter  and  I  will  pay 
some  other  day,"  forgetting  that,  though  each  account 
was  very  small,  when  all  was  put  together  it  meant  a  large 
sum  to  one  man.  Things  went  on  thus.  The  man  got  to 
feeling  so  bad  that  he  fell  out  of  bed  and  awoke.  Run- 
ning to  his  granary,  he  found  his  i,8oo  bushels  of  wheat 
still  there. 

Moral:  The  next  day  he  went  to  the  publisher  of 
his  paper  and  said:  **Here,  sir,  is  the  pay  for  your 
paper,  and  when  next  year's  subscription  is  due,  you  can 
depend  upon  me  to  pay  it  promptly.  I  stood  in  the  posi- 
tion of  the  editor  last  night,  and  I  know  how  he  feels  to 
have  his  honestly-earned  money  scattered  all  over  the 
country  in  small  accounts." 

Collecting  the  Money. — The  collection  of  sub- 
scription money  where  the  business  is  not  on  a  cash- 
in-advance  basis  is  more  or  less  hap-hazard.  It  in- 
volves long  waits,  repeated  letters,  or  personal  calls. 
It  may  even  become  necessary  to  hire  a  collector  or 
agency  to  get  the  money.  This  extreme  measure 
usually  creates  feeling  against  the  paper  and  almost 
always  results  in  the  loss  of  subscribers.  Much  dead 
wood  can  be  eliminated  in  this  way,  but  if  there  is  a 
cash-in-advance  policy,  there  will  be  no  dead  wood  and 
the  straining  or  rupture  of  personal  relations  will  be 
avoided. 

If  the  paper  is  strictly  cash-in-advance,  the  collec- 
tion probkm  is  a  comparatively  simple  one.  A  few 
weeks  before  the  expiration  of  the  subscription  a  form 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  237 

like  the  following  can  be  inclosed  in  the  paper  to  notify 
the  subscriber: 

YOUR  SUBSCRIPTION  WILL  EXPIRE 
THE  FIRST  OF  THE  MONTH 

Inclosed  find  $. . .  .  for  which  renew  my  subscription 
for. . .  .months  to  THE  MAYNARD  NEWS. 

Name 

Town State 

Rural  Route  Number 

Fill  out  and  mail  RIGHT  NOW  with  remittance  to 
THE  NEWS,  MAYNARD,  IOWA. 

FoUow-Up  Letters. — If,  as  is  very  often  the  case, 
the  subscriber  neglects  to  fill  out  the  form  and  to  remit 
for  his  renewal,  a  letter  such  as  the  following  may  be 
sent  to  him.  This  is  a  form  used  by  the  Fulton  (Mis- 
souri) Gazette,  a  conspicuously  successful  country 
paper. 

Dear  Sir  : 

Your  subscription  to  the  Gazette  expired  with  the  last 
issue.  A  little  more  than  two  weeks  ago  we  sent  you 
notice  of  the  fact,  but  we  suppose  you  overlooked  the 
matter. 

This  letter  is  simply  to  call  your  attention  to  it  again. 
We  believe  you  do  not  want  the  Gazette  to  stop,  and  be- 
cause of  that  fact,  we  are  going  to  send  you  the  coming 
issue.  It  will  be  the  last  you  will  receive,  however,  unless 
we  hear  from  you  with  instructions  to  continue  the  paper. 

Our  circulation  is  on  a  strictly  cash-in-advance  basis, 
and  we  do  not  force  the  paper  on  anyone.  When  the 
time  is  out,  the  paper  stops.  Everyone  is  treated  alike, 
and  we  are  glad  to  say  that  the  plan  meets  the  approval 
of  our  patrons. 

If  you  will  mail  us  a  check  or  a  money  order  in  the  en? 


238  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

closed  envelope  right  now,  you  will  not  miss  a  copy  of 
the  paper.    DO  IT  NOW. 

We  thank  you  for  your  patronage,  and  hope  you  will 
continue  to  be  a  subscriber. 

Very  respectfully, 

Fulton  Gazette  Publishing  Company, 

,  Manager. 

System  in  Renewals. — One  reason  why  so  many 
country  editors  have  dead  wood  is  because  they  lack 
the  business  initiative  and  persistence  to  carry  on  a 
campaign  for  renewals.  The  tendency  is  either  to  cut 
off  if  the  money  does  not  come  in  at  once,  or  to  carry 
on  without  making  a  real  effort  to  get  the  money. 
Either  one  of  these  plans  is  easy,  but  the  easy  way  is 
not  usually  the  best  way.  One  must  work  for  success 
in  the  country  field.  Neither  a  hard  and  fast  *'cut-off" 
policy  nor  an  easy-going  '*carry-on"  policy  is  the  best 
one  for  the  average  country  office. 

In  the  case  of  the  paper  which  demands  cash  in  ad- 
vance for  its  subscriptions,  the  matter  of  handling  re- 
newals is  very  simple  indeed.  If  the  subscriber  does 
not  remit,  his  name  is  taken  off  the  circulation  list. 
But,  after  all,  a  subscriber  is  lost.  Although  it  is  bet- 
ter that  one  be  lost  than  to  carry  one  who  cannot  or 
will  not  pay,  there  are  many  ways  of  trying  to  induce 
the  subscriber  to  extend  his  subscription  for  another 
year.  Telephone  calls,  personal  solicitation,  personal 
letters — all  have  their  value  in  a  campaign  of  this  sort. 
What  wift  answer  for  one  man  and  for  a  given  paper 
may  not  be  effective  in  other  cases  where  the  circum- 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  239 

stances  or  conditions  are  different.  But  one  thing  is 
certain,  and  that  is  that  the  editor  should  not  let  a 
paying  subscriber  go  if  there  is  any  legitimate  way  of 
holding  him. 

M.  C.  Robbins,  of  the  Iron  Age,  says : 

The  advertising  man  who  does  not  put  up  a  strenuous 
fight,  who  does  not  argue,  plead,  and  use  every  method 
known  to  the  art  to  hold  an  advertiser  in  the  paper  after 
he  has  shown  an  inclination  to  discontinue  you  would 
fire  on  the  spot.  Why,  then,  should  we  not  pursue  the 
same  rigorous  and  energetic  policy  in  reference  to  hold- 
ing subscribers?  Every  subscriber  who  stops  taking  the 
paper  is  so  much  lost  good  will,  and  if  we  let  this  go  on 
indefinitely,  we  shall  soon  find  that  our  field  is  restricted 
because  so  many  who  were  once  subscribers  have  been 
dropped. 

The  best  policy  for  handling  renewals  in  the  coun- 
try field  seems  to  be  an  educative  policy.  In  the  first 
place  the  editor  must  be  sure  that  his  paper  is  worth 
the  price  he  asks,  and  he  must  be  able  to  prove  his 
point.  He  must  be  willing  and  eager  to  show,  just  as 
any  other  salesman  would  show,  the  merits  of  his  ar- 
ticle.   Quoting  again  from  Mr.  Robbins: 

Send  the  bill  to  the  subscriber  about  a  month  in  ad- 
vance of  his  expiration ;  send  with  it  an  educative  folder 
in  reference  to  the  value  and  use  of  the  paper ;  also  a  let- 
ter calling  attention  to  the  bill  and  courteously  suggest- 
ing that  he  send  in  remittance  for  renewal.  Follow  this 
once  a  month,  or  possibly  oftener,  with  a  bill,  a  letter, 
and  a  piece  of  literature  which  tells  the  man  something 
definite :  That  points  out  how  the  paper  should  be  used 
and  read ;  how  it  can  be  made  of  value  to  him ;  what  he 
IS  missing  by  not  using  it.  In  fact,  talk  him  into  using  the 
paper  that  he  is  now  receiving  every  issue.     With  this 


240  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY  j 

should  go  a  most  forceful  appeal  for  the  money,  stating 
reasons  why  the  bill  should  be  paid.  Just  how  long  this 
should  be  continued,  just  how  many  bills,  letters,  and 
folders  should  be  sent  before  the  name  should  be  put 
into  a  special  list  can  only  be  determined  by  experience. 
But  the  point  is  this :  As  long  as  you  bring  down  a 
goodly  percentage  of  your  delinquent  subscribers  each 
shot,  continue  to  send  out  the  literature,  bills,  and  letters. 

The  country  editor  is  fortunate  in  that  he  knows  per- 
sonally a  good  many  of  his  subscribers.  Personal  let- 
ters to  them  concerning  renewals,  or  better  still  a  per- 
sonal call,  will  usually  bring  the  desired  result.  If 
there  is  a  real  grievance  against  the  paper,  a  tactful 
editor  can  find  out  what  it  is  and  usually  adjust  the 
difference.  Building  and  maintaining  a  circulation  is 
a  matter  chiefly  of  service  and  the  capacity  for  taking 
pains. 

Summary. — There  are  so  many  ways  by  which  a 
publisher  can  build  and  maintain  a  subscription  list 
that  it  is  impossible  to  mention  them  all.  Each  pub- 
lisher has  his  own  community  to  please,  and  he  must 
work  out  the  details  of  the  job  himself.  Two  things, 
however,  apply  in  every  case  :  ( i )  The  editor  must 
fix  a  fair  subscription  price  based  on  actual  cost  fig- 
ures; and  (2)  he  must  keep  at  work  all  the  time  on  the 
subscription  list.  He  cannot  afford  to  let  his  circula- 
tion campaign  languish  for  even  a  single  month.  The 
easiest  way  and  the  best  way  is  to  keep  at  it  all  the 
time.  Service  and  good  business  methods  continually 
kept  up  will  solve  the  problem  of  circulation  for  any 
office,  without  the  aid  of  contests,  premiums,  cut  rates, 
clubbing  offers,  or  any  other  scheme  which  cheapens 


CIRCULATION  PROBLEMS  241 

the  paper  and  hurts  the  public  opinion  of  the  paper  as 
a  commercial  venture  and  of  the  editor  as  a  business 
man. 

Suggestions 

Cash-in-advance  never  wronged  anyone. 

Service  alone  will  not  maintain  circulation;  add 
salesmanship. 

Don't  cut  rates. 

Keep  on  the  job  all  the  time  and  avoid  contests  and 
premiums. 

Clubbing  rates  are  a  good  thing — but  not  for  the 
country  editor. 

If  you  want  subscribers,  try  personal  solicitation. 

''Educative'*  letters  and  circulars  are  worth  trying. 

Don't  give  away  a  motor  car  for  subscriptions.  Get 
the  money  for  the  paper  and  buy  a  car  of  your  own. 


CHAPTER  X 
ADVERTISING  IN  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

I.     The  Function  of  Advertising 

Service  of  Advertising. — The  economic  impor- 
tance of  advertising  in  any  paper  can  scarcely  be  over- 
estimated. It  has  come  to  be  the  burden-bearer  of  the 
pubHsher,  his  chief  marketable  product,  his  only  hope 
of  profit.  The  function  of  a  newspaper  is,  as  it  al- 
ways has  been,  to  give  the  news ;  that  is  the  only  legiti- 
mate reason  for  the  existence  of  any  newspaper  and 
is  still  the  sine  qua  non  of  all  such  publications.  But, 
while  this  is  true,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  with- 
out profitable  advertising  this  news  service  could  not  be 
given  so  well  nor  disseminated  so  widely.  Early  pa- 
pers carried  little  or  no  advertising  but  it  was  not  long 
before  both  the  publishers  and  the  merchants  began  to 
see  the  possibility  of  giving  publicity  to  business  ac- 
tivities, and  advertising  was  begun  by  the  publishers  as 
a  more  or  less  negligible  source  of  additional  income — 
a  sort  of  by-product. 

It  is  now  pretty  generally  agreed  that  advertising 
renders  a  triple  service  to  the  three  classes  of  people 
whom  it  touches :  ( i )  It  makes  it  possible  for  the 
readers  to  get  the  news  more  cheaply  than  they  could 
hope  to  ^et  it  if  subscription  to  the  paper  were  made 

242 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    243 

high  enough  to  cover  the  cost  of  production  and  leave 
a  legitimate  profit;  and  it  enables  them  to  get  timely 
and  accurate  information  as  to  salable  articles  that 
might  interest  them  in  their  own  locality  or  in  other 
localities.  (2)  It  helps  the  merchant  to  give  publicity 
to  his  business.  (3)  It  makes  it  possible  for  the  edi- 
tor-publisher to  make  a  larger  profit  from  his  paper 
than  would  be  possible  if  subscriptions  were  the  only 
source  of  revenue.  Strictly  speaking,  advertising  is 
news  and  as  such  has  a  place  in  the  newspaper;  but, 
since  it  is  news  which  is  of  direct  value  chiefly  to  the 
business  firm  mentioned,  it  is  a  charge  that  may  prop- 
erly be  made  to  the  firm  involved.  If  advertising  is 
well  handled,  there  is  no  reason  why  it  cannot  be  made 
as  interesting  as  many  other  items  of  news  that  ap- 
pear in  the  paper. 

Qualities  of  a  Good  Ad.^Too  much  of  the  adver- 
tising that  we  see  in  the  papers,  especially  in  the  small 
country  weekly,  is  of  no  value  either  as  news  or  as 
advertising.  Its  psychology  is  often  wrong  and  its 
typography  careless.  According  to  Arthur  Brisbane, 
editor  of  the  New  York  Journal,  there  are  four  quali- 
ties which  a  good  ad  must  very  definitely  have :  ( i ) 
It  must  be  seen;  (2)  it  must  be  read;  (3)  it  must  be 
understood;  and  (4)  it  must  be  believed.  In  other 
words,  good  advertising  must  be  constructed  with 
great  care  that  the  typography  may  be  attractive  and 
suggestive,  the  psychology  sound,  the  style  clear,  and 
the  truth  apparent.  Many  ads,  especially  in  the  coun- 
try, are  not  so  constructed;  all  good  ads,  no  matter 


244  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

where  they  are  found,  are  built  in  accordance  with  this 
plan. 

The  Appeal  of  Advertising. — In  a  recent  address 
on  "Gladvertising  versus  Sadvertising,"  Arnold  Joerns, 
Chicago  advertising  man,  stated  that  there  are  seven 
instincts  of  human  nature  to  which  an  advertiser  may 
legitimately  appeal:  (i)  Property,  (2)  power,  (3) 
self-preservation,  (4)  affections,  (5)  sentiment,  (6) 
reputation,  and  (7)  taste. 

It  will  readily  be  noted  that  these  seven  points  are 
all  comprehended  in  the  scope  of  the  reader's  inter- 
est in  bona  fide  news  values  as  given  in  Chapter  II  of 
the  present  discussion.  The  appeal,  then,  of  advertis- 
ing is  nothing  more  than  an  appeal  to  the  news  sense 
of  the  reader.  The  emphasis  is  distributed  differently 
but  the  fundamentals  are  not  changed.  The  only 
marked  difference  is  that  the  appeal  of  advertising  is 
slightly  more  limited  than  that  of  news,  for  it  is  ad- 
dressed primarily  to  the  selfishness  of  man.  It  points 
out  to  him  how  he  can  take  advantage  of  some  offer 
that  will  be  of  benefit  to  him  personally.  It  lacks,  then, 
in  extensiveness  as  compared  to  simon-pure  news 
values,  but  it  makes  up  in  intensiveness  what  it  lacks 
in  breadth.  Consequently,  there  is  undoubtedly  a  place 
for  it  in  every  newspaper,  for  it  is  a  form  of  news 
which,  if  properly  presented,  is  of  personal  and  eco- 
nomic interest  to  the  reader. 

II.     The  Field  of  the  Country  Weekly 

The  Triple  Field.— The  advertising  field  of  the 
country  weekly  is  divided  into  three  parts :     ( i )  Lo- 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    245 

cal  advertising,  (2)  national  advertising  of  locally- 
marketed  products,  and  (3)  mail-order  advertising. 

Local  advertising  is  an  important  source  of  profit, 
but  it  is  limited  to  the  number  of  business  concerns  op- 
erating in  the  trade  basin  where  the  paper  is  published. 
Even  though  these  concerns  grow  normally,  there  is  a 
definite  limit  to  their  growth  and  volume  of  business. 
None  of  them  can  afford  to  spend  more  than  three 
or  four  per  cent  of  gross  sales  on  local  advertising, 
and  very  few  of  them  will  appropriate  so  much  as  this. 

National  advertising,  once  disregarded  by  the  best 
country  publishers  as  a  source  of  much  annoyance  and 
of  very  little  real  profit,  is  now  the  only  field  which 
offers  really  big  things  to  the  country  publisher.  The 
amount  of  national  advertising  that  can  be  diverted  to 
the  country  field  is  enormous;  whether  the  country 
editor  gets  this  advertising  depends  upon  his  ability 
and  willingness  to  handle  the  advertising  on  a  busi- 
nesslike basis. 

Mail-order  advertising  is  different  from  the  others 
in  at  least  one  important  particular.  Local  advertis- 
ing is  good  for  the  business  men  and  for  the  readers. 
National  advertising  of  locally-marketed  products  re- 
enforces  the  advertising  of  local  merchants.  But  mail- 
order advertising  brings  foreign  competition  to  the  lo- 
cal merchants.  Each  of  these  kinds  of  advertising 
will  be  discussed  later  in  detail. 

Quality  Circulation. — The  country  weekly  as  an 
advertising  medium  is  valuable  chiefly  because  it  is 
the  *'home"  paper.  One  of  the  first  things  to  empha- 
size to  a  possible  advertiser  is  that  you  have  a  quality 


246  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

circulation;  that  your  paper  goes  into  the  home  and 
is  read  by  everyone  there;  that  the  majority  of  your 
readers  live  in  the  trade  basin  and  do  their  shopping 
in  the  town  where  the  paper  is  published.  Make  the 
advertiser  see  that  you  are  selling  him  the  use  of  the^ 
paper's  good  will.  If  the  home  paper  has  been  estab- 
Jished  for  a  number  of  years,  it  has  likely  gained  a 
reputation  for  fair  dealing  and  public  spirit  in  the 
community.  Most  of  the  people  know  the  editor  and 
the  editor's  family;  the  whole  enterprise  is  a  local  af- 
fair. As  soon  as  the  advertiser  is  admitted  into  the 
columns  of  the  paper,  he  is  tacitly  indorsed  by  the 
editor  as  being  reliable  and  trustworthy.  This  is  a 
form  of  service  which  cannot  be  bought  so  completely 
elsewhere;  this  is  what  makes  quality  circulation  bet- 
ter than  any  bulk  circulation  whatsoever. 

Censoring  the  Advertising.— An  honest  man  takes 
a  pardonable  pride  in  the  sincerity  of  his  work  and  in 
the  quality  of  his  product.  The  paper  which  poses  as 
the  ''home"  paper  must  be  careful  what  appears  in  its 
columns  if  its  appeal  for  legitimate  advertising  is  to  be 
effective.  The  newspapers  of  the  country  have  gone  a 
long  way  in  this  respect  in  the  last  twenty  years.  Truth 
has  become  more  and  more  the  standard  which  publish- 
ers have  been  trying  to  establish.  There  is  more  care 
now  than  ever  before  that  all  news  shall  be  accurate 
and  impartial.  There  is  also  a  well-marked  tendency 
to  extend  this  fight  for  truth  into  the  advertising  col- 
umns as  well,  for  they  contain  news  of  the  business 
world  w^hich  is  of  direct  importance  to  the  readers. 

The  New  York  Tribune  has  taken  for  its  service  slo- 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    247 

gan :  "First  to  Last,  The  Truth — News,  Editorials,  Ad- 
vertisements." This  paper  has  even  gone  so  far  in  its 
idea  of  service  to  its  readers  as  to  guarantee  every  ar- 
ticle which  is  advertised  in  its  columns.  If  anyone 
buys  an  advertised  article  which  is  not  as  represented, 
the  Tribune  will  either  get  the  advertiser  to  refund  or 
will  pay  the  money  from  its  own  pocket.  The  dishon- 
est advertiser  is  dropped  and  a  ruthless  expose  is  pub- 
lished. Samuel  Hopkins  Adams  and  his  associates 
who  have  charge  of  the  bureau  are  relentless  in  weed- 
ing out  the  dishonest  advertiser,  no  matter  how 
large  an  amount  of  space  he  uses  in  the  Tribune  each' 
year.  As  a  result.  Tribune  advertising  is  worth  more 
both  to  the  public  and  to  the  advertisers  than  it  would 
otherwise  be. 

Many  of  the  smaller  papers  of  the  country  are  work- 
ing along  these  same  lines  and  are  doing  what  they  can 
to  make  their  columns  reflect  the  truth.  A  compari- 
son of  the  columns^  of  the  country  papers  today  with 
those  of  twenty  or  even  ten  years  ago  will  show  a 
remarkable  cleaning  up  of  harmful  and  dishonest  ad- 
vertising. There  are  still  some  publishers  who  assert 
that  their  columns  are  open  to  anyone  who  will  pay 
for  the  space  and  the  service,  and  say  that  they  do 
not  necessarily  indorse  a  preparation  or  article  offered 
for  sale  because  it  is  advertised  in  their  columns.  Un- 
less they  can  do. this,  they  are  not  giving  the  kind  of 
service  that  should  go  with  advertising,  and  the  public 
in  general  believes  that  the  old  saw  holds  good  in  this 
case:  "Whose  bread  I  eat,  his  song  I  sing." 

It  seems  certain  that  Gresham's  Law  applies  just  as 


248  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

forcefully  in  advertising  as  it  does  in  the  question  of 
fiat  money.  Bad  advertising  will  drive  out  the  good. 
If  you  v^ant  the  best  sort  of  advertising  to  be  attracted 
to  your  columns,  you  will  have  to  bar  the  undesirable 
sort.  It  is  a  matter  of  business  as  well  as  of  morality. 
*'No  advertisement  is  judged  by  itself  alone,  but  by  the 
company  it  keeps."  says  Samuel  Hopkins  Adams  of  the 
New  York  Tribune,  "Not  one  particular  line  suffers 
by  a  'fake/  but  the  readers  are  made  suspicious  of 
the  legitimate  advertisements  oftentimes  when  they 
read  them  side  by  side  with  false  offers  and  swindlers' 
notices." 

A  newly-awakened  social  conscience  demands  that 
harmful  and  dishonest  things  shall  not  be  given  pub- 
licity of  this  sort.  A  man  might  need  money  and  wish 
to  sell  liquor  to  the  Indians ;  the  government  says  "thou 
shalt  not !"  It  might  be  profitable  business  to  sell  habit- 
forming  drugs  to  some  poor,  battered  unfortunate;  so- 
ciety has  placed  the  ban  upon  it.  There  is  every  rea- 
son to  believe  that  all  antisocial  advertising  will  have 
to  go,  either  by  the  acquiescence  of  the  editors  or  by 
federal  enactment.  No  publisher  can  afford  to  carry 
on  his  business  with  funds  which  are  in  part  gained  by 
the  exploitation  of  the  public  through  antisocial  ad-- 
vertising.  * 

The  '  *  Index  Prohibitorum. '  '—Every  newspaper 
should  have  a  black  list  of  things  to  which  it  will  not 
give  advertising  publicity  under  any  circumstances. 
The  following  is  suggested  as  being  a  suitable  list  of 
things  foi*  the  editor  to  reject  if  he  would  keep  clean 
hands:     (i)  Attacks  on  character  or  credit;  (2)  of- 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    249 

fenses  against  good  taste;  (3)  offers  of  something  for 
nothing;  (4)  large  guaranteed  dividends;  (5)  offers 
of  large  salary;  (6)  guaranteed  cures;  (7)  matrimo- 
nial bureau  advertising;  (8)  diseases  of  men  or  of 
women;  (9)  patent  medicine  advertising;  (10)  im- 
moral books;  (11)  suggestive  *'art'';  (12)  fortune  tel- 
lers, clairvoyants,  palmists;  (13)  word  contests  and 
picture  puzzles  with  prizes. 

III.     Fixing  the  Rates 

The  Basis  of  Charge. — Within  the  past  few  years 
country  publishers  have  been  realizing  the  fact  that 
they  have  not  been  charging  enough  for  advertising 
space.  Too  often  they  have  made  their  charges  on 
the  basis  of  what  the  traffic  would  bear.  With  the  ad- 
vent of  the  cost-finding  system  and  with  the  discussion 
of  advertising  rates  in  the  county,  district,  and  state 
editorial  meetings,  a  general  move  toward  adequate 
prices  has  begun.  Of  course  it  is  assumed  that  the 
price  per  inch  will  have  to  be  based  largely  on  the 
aggregate  of  the  bona  fide  circulation.  While  this  may 
not  always  be  a  just  basis  of  computation,  it  is  the 
only  one  which  seems  to  be  workable  at  present.  This 
system  demands  that  the  circulation  figures  be  honest 
and  that  they  be  net — all  exchanges  and  deadheads  be- 
ing ignored  in  the  count  for  bona  fide  circulation. 

The  White  Inch. — To  determine  the  cost  of  the 
white  inch  is  the  first  step  in  fixing  the  rate.  This  can 
be  done  in  most  cases  with  a  fair  degree  of  accuracy. 
It  is  necessary  first  to  know  the  average  weekly  cost  of 


250  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

the  paper,  including  the  editor's  salary  and  profit. 
Since  this  cost  includes  such  items  as  general  overhead, 
depreciation,  interest  on  investment,  taxes,  etc.,  it  can- 
not accurately  be  found  without  a  cost-finding  system. 
From  the  cost  amount  there  is  subtracted  the  average 
weekly  income  exclusive  of  advertising.  This  income 
would  include  the  sums  gained  from  legal  notices,  read- 
ing notices,  and  subscriptions — less  a  suitable  amount 
for  bad  debts  unless  the  paper  is  on  a  strict  cash-in- 
advance  basis.  The  result  should  be  divided  by  the 
average  number  of  inches  of  display  advertising  car- 
ried each  week  of  the  year.  The  quotient  will  be  the 
cost  of  the  cheapest  inch;. that  is,  the  preferential  rate 
given  on  long-time  contracts  to  local  advertisers.  The 
cost  ot  composition,  which  is  usually  estimated  at  six 
cents  an  inch,  is  subtracted,  leaving  the  actual  cost  of 
the  white  inch. 

For  example,  the  following  figures  taken  from  a 
study  of  advertising  costs  in  Wisconsin  by  Lyle  C. 
Clarke  will  illustrate  the  point.  These  figures  are  as- 
serted to  be  typical  for  the  Class  '^C  weekly,  those 
under  i,ooo  circulation  with  four  pages  of  ready-print. 

Cost  plus  25%  profit. $69.50 

Legals  and  locals $10.40 

Subscriptions,  less  20%   debts.  .$16.60     $27.00 

Average  number  column  inches 236)$42.5o(i7 

rate  per  inch 

From  this  flat  rate  of  17  cents  the  6  cents  for  composi- 
tion may  be  subtracted,  leaving  the  cost  for  the  white 
inch  II  cents  if  all  the  advertising  is  set  every  week. 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    251 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  figuring  of  a  flat  rate  is  com- 
paratively simple,  but  since  the  flat  rate  is  not  usual  for 
local  advertising,  it  is  necessary  to  figure  a  sliding  rate 
that  will  operate  as  equitably  as  may  be  for  all  home 
advertisers.  This  sliding  rate  is  justified  on  the 
grounds  that  the  continual  user  of  regular  space  is  en- 
titled to  a  preferential  rate.  An  advertiser  of  this  sort 
is  the  one  who  is  a  continual  supporter  of  the  paper. 
The  publisher  is  able,  if  he  has  this  sort  of  advertising 
contracts,  to  plan  his  paper  ahead  and  to  cut  down  the 
use  of  plate  and  additional  expense  caused  by  an  influx 
of  irregular  advertising  at  busy  seasons  like  the  holi- 
days. The  rate  must  be  figured  on  the  ''peak  load'* 
plan.  It  penalizes  the  occasional  advertiser  and  tends 
to  bring  about  a  steady  volume  of  advertising  at  fair 
rates. 

The  rates  per  inch  fixed  as  fair  for  the  average  Class 
''C  weekly  in  Wisconsin  is  as  follows : 

I  yr.     6  mo.     3  mo.     2  mo.     i  mo.     2  wk.     I  wk. 
17  19  20  20  22  24  29 

The  above  figures  include  composition  at  6  cents  an 
inch.  In  case  of  a  second  or  repeated  insertion  of  the 
same  ad,  the  composition  cost  would  be  deducted. 

Changing  the  Ad.— One  difficulty  the  publisher 
will  have  with  a  rate  like  that  above  is  that  it  will  make 
it  hard  for  him  to  convince  the  advertiser  that  he  ought 
to  change  his  ad  each  week.  The  advertiser  is  likely 
to  take  the  ground  that  he  is  being  penalized  for  being 
a  "live"  advertiser.  It  will  be  the  task  of  the  publisher 
to  show  the  merchant  that  his  advertising  is,  in  effect. 


252  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

store  news,  and  that  a  standing  advertisement  is  of 
little  more  value  than  a  standing  news  story.  There 
must  be  something  definite  advertised  each  week.  The 
difference  of  six  cents  an  inch  each  week  is  more  than 
offset  by  the  additional  pulling  power  of  the  new  ad- 
vertisement. This  must  be  clearly  shown  to  the  mer- 
chant on  the  basis  of  economy. 

If  a  man  has  a  contract  for  a  year  and  changes  his 
ad  only  three  or  four  times,  he  is  really  losing  1 1  cents 
an  inch  every  time  the  ad  repeats,  for  he  is  paying  the 
cost  of  the  white  inch  without  getting  a  return  for  it. 
The  man  who  runs  a  stove  advertisement  along  in  July 
under  the  headline,  WINTER  DAYS  ARE  HERE, 
is  giving  neither  himself  nor  the  publisher  a  fair  deal. 
He  will  become  disgusted  with  advertising  and  will  be 
more  than  likely  not  to  renew  the  contract.  Also,  it 
will  make  the  paper  look  foolish  and  will  not  be  a  very 
good  advertisement  either  for  the  editor  or  for  the 
business  of  the  town. 

Increasing  the  Rate.— rit  is  assumed  in  the  present 
discussion  that  most  country  papers  have  too  low  ad- 
vertising rates.  When  the  publisher  is  convinced  that 
he  is  not  getting  a  proper  return  from  his  advertising 
space,  the  problem  of  how  to  advance  the  rate  is  a  seri- 
ous one  that  must  be  met.  A  survey  of  the  weekly 
newspapers  in  central  Wisconsin  in  191 5  showed  that 
the  average  rate  for  display  advertising  was  eight  cents 
an  inch.  That  this  is  far  too  low  is  evident.  But  the 
publisher  of  a  Class  ''C  weekly  who  went  to  his  ad- 
vertisers and  advanced  the  rate  from  8  cents  to  17  cents 
an  inch  for  a  yearly  contract  would  meet  with  many 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    253 

difficulties  and  would  lose  much  advertising.  The  best 
thing  for  him  to  do  is  to  talk  business  to  the  advertis- 
ers and  show  them  that  he  is  accepting  their  copy  below 
cost.  In  order  to  do  this,  he  will  have  to  know  his 
costs  perfectly  from  a  good  cost-finding  system.  Then 
he  can  show  what  he  ought  to  be  getting  for  his  space. 
He  will  likely  be  wise  to  distribute  the  increase  over 
three  or  four  years  and  thus  give  the  merchant  a 
chance  to  get  used  gradually  to  the  idea- of  paying 
what  the  space  is  worth.  It  will  also  show  the  mer- 
chant that  the  publisher  is  willing  to  meet  him  half- 
way and  to  make  the  burden  of  the  increment  as  easy 
and  as  gradual  as  he  can  afford  to.  A  strong  line  of 
argument  about  advertising  "service''  will  be  of  value 
here,  and,  unless  the  publisher  can  really  point  to  some- 
thing definite  in  the  way  of  service,  he  stands  to  lose 
business. 

The  Psychology  of  the  Higher  Rate.— The  use  of 
the  word  psychology  is  probably  a  bit  overdone  in  the 
business  world  today.  But  there  is  undoubtedly  a  psy- 
chology of  the  higher  rate.  We  are  all  of  us  likely  to 
value  most  highly  that  which  represents  the  greatest 
sacrifice  of  money  or  effort.  If  an  advertiser  is  get- 
ting space  at  a  ruinously  low  rate,  8  cents  for  example, 
he  is  not  likely  to  pay  much  attention  to  the  quality  of 
his  advertising.  The  tendency  will  be  to  put  an  ad  in 
the  paper  and  let  it  stand  for  some  time.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  is  paying  a  fair  rate  for  the  space,  it  repre- 
sents to  him  a  more  considerable  outlay  of  money,  and 
he  will  be  more  careful  of  what  goes  into  his  advertise- 
ment.    His  copy  will  be  better  and  his  changes  more 


254  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

frequent.  If  the  editor  can  secure  the  merchants'  names 
to  a  contract  at  a  fair  rate,  he  can  be  pretty  sure  that 
the  class  of  advertising  will  improve,  and  this  will 
operate  to  the  advantage  both  of  the  advertiser  and  of 
the  publisher. 

Rate  Agreement  with  Competitors.— Another 
difficult  problem  which  the  publisher  must  meet  is  the 
equitable  agreement  on  rates  with  his  competitor.  If 
there  is  another  paper  in  the  field,  as  there  is  likely  to 
be  if  the  field  is  a  good  one,  it  will  be  of  advantage  to 
the  publisher  to  see  that  rates  are  made  as  nearly  uni- 
form as  conditions  will  allow.  If  one  paper  charges  17 
cents  for  its  cheapest  set  inch  and  the  other  paper 
charges  only  8  or  10  cents,  the  country  merchant 
may  not  stop  to  consider  the  elements  of  circulation 
and  service,  but  may  place  his  advertising  where  he  can 
get  the  cheaper  rate.  This,  again,  is  the  place  for  the 
service  argument.  The  publisher  who  has  real  service 
to  point  to  ought  not  to  experience  any  great  diffi- 
culty in  showing  the  merchant  that  the  higher  rate  is 
really  the  cheaper.  On  the  other  hand,  his  battle  will  be 
more  than  half  won  if  he  can  persuade  his  competitor 
to  fix  his  rates  on  the  basis  of  costs.  Even  if  the  rate 
is  fixed  arbitrarily,  a  trade  agreement  of  this  sort  is 
a  help  toward  getting  an  equitable  distribution  of  busi- 
ness. The  common  practice  of  rate-cutting  to  secure 
local  business  would  be  reduced  to  a  minimum  and  the 
prosperity  of  the  country  weekly  would  be  assured. 

The  Local-Rate  Card. — The  publisher  should  bol- 
ster up  his* determination  not  to  cut  rates  by  the  use  of 
a  good  local-rate  card  which  he  should  give  to  each  of 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    255 

his  local  advertisers.  Some  publishers  print  their  rates 
in  the  paper,  though  this  is  not  general  nor,  indeed,  at 
all  necessary.  It  is  imperative,  however,  that  whatever 
the  rate  may  be,  the  publisher  should  adhere  closely  to 
his  card  so  long  as  it  is  in  force.  Only  by  businesslike 
methods  can  he  maintain  his  dignity  in  the  community 
as  a  manufacturer  with  a  legitimate  product  to  sell;  a 
product  of  which  he  knows  the  cost  and  on  which  he 
quotes  one  price  to  all.  The  foreign-rate  card,  which 
presents  quite  specialized  problems,  will  be  discussed 
in  detail  in  Part  V  of  this  chapter. 

Free  Space  Grafters. — The  editor  is  constantly  be- 
ing approached  by  various  people  and  organizations 
with  axes  to  grind.  These  people  take  the  attitude  that 
the  editor  has  the  space  and  that  it  would  be  a  cour- 
teous thing  for  him  to  publish  their  matter.  Often 
these  plausible  people  give  material  to  the  editor  which, 
they  say,  ''will  interest  the  people  of  your  town,''  or 
which  ''you  can  use  to  fill  up  with."  The  wise  editor 
will  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  all  these  parasites.  He  is  sup- 
plying service  and  for  that  service  he  should  be  paid  at 
the  fixed  rate. 

The  editor  of  the  Wakefield  (Massachusetts)  Daily 
Item  had  enough  free  space  requests  in  one  week  dur- 
ing the  month  of  October,  191 6,  to  have  filled  his  whole 
paper  of  six  pages  every  day  in  the  week,  and  an  addi- 
tional thirty-five  columns  to  start  the  eighth  day  with. 
At  the  Item's  regular  advertising  rate  of  ten  cents  ?» 
line  for  reading  matter,  this  would  have  amounted  to 
$4,606.    While  a  daily  paper  gets  more  of  these  free 


256  TrtE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

space  requests  than  a  weekly,  plenty  of  them  find  their 
way  into  the  country  office. 

Advertising  patrons  are  often  insistent  that  they 
shall  be  given  free  space  in  the  way  of  reading  notices 
and  commendatory  mention.  They  proceed  on  the  as- 
sumption that,  because  they  have  bought  something, 
they  should  be  given  something  by  way  of  lagniappe. 
Yet  if  the  editor  went  into  a  store  and  bought  a  pair  of 
shoes,  the  merchant  would  not  expect  to  give  him  a  pair 
of  rubbers  to  fit  the  shoes.  Too  many  country  pub- 
lishers have  not  developed  sufficient  backbone  to  refuse 
this  sort  of  free  service  to  advertisers  and,  as  a  result, 
their  columns  are  spotted  each  week  with  local  notices 
calling  attention  to  the  advertising  of  their  patrons  or 
with  mention  of  some  especial  excellence  to  be  found 
in  the  various  stores.  This  is  bad  because  it  sometimes 
assumes  the  form  of  editorializing  in  the  news  columns 
in  such  a  way  that  all  can  see  that  it  is  venal.  Some  ed- 
itors have  the  habit  so  badly  that  they  rarely  mention 
their  advertisers  without  some  sort  of  free  advertising 
being  dragged  in  by  the  ears.  It  makes  the  paper  the 
butt  of  its  readers  and,  in  the  long  run,  does  more 
harm  than  good  to  the  advertisers. 

The  following  extreme  case  of  free  reading  notice  is 
attributed  to  a  Minnesota  weekly :' 

Miss  Jenny  Jones  and  Roh  Henny  were  married  at  the 
Jones  mansion  last  night.  The  bride  is  the  daughter  of 
our  Constable  Jones,  who  ha«5  made  a  good  officer  and 
will  undoubtedly  be  reelected  in  the  spring.  He  offers  a 
fine  horse  for  sale  in  another  column.  The  groom  runs 
a  grocery  store  on  Main  street  and  is  a  good  patron  of 
our  ad  columns,  and  has  got  in  a  new  line  of  bargains 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    257 

this  week.  All  summer  he  has  paid  two  cents  more  for 
butter  than  any  other  store  in  town.  The  happy  couple 
left  on  the  ten  o'clock  train  for  Milwaukee  to  visit  the 
bride's  uncle,  who  is  reported  to  have  lots  of  money  and 
Bright's  disease.    Rob  certainly  has  an  eye  for  business. 


IV.    Local  Advertising 

Converting  the  Business  Man. — In  most  commu- 
nities converting  the  business  man  is  one  of  the  hardest 
tasks  that  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  country  publisher.  If 
the  merchant  is  making  money,  or  thinks  he  is,  he  can 
see  no  good  to  be  gained  by  spending  money  for  adver- 
tising; if  he  is  not  making  money,  he  has  not  the  means 
to  carry  out  an  advertising  campaign.  The  editor  en- 
counters one  or  the  other  of  these  excuses  very  often. 
It  is  quite  true  that  in  the  last  twenty  years  merchants 
in  the  country  have  begun  to  use  printer's  ink  with  a 
fair  degree  of  regularity,  and  they  know  something  of 
the  possibilities  of  advertising  as  carried  out  by  big 
concerns  in  the  cities.  It  is  not  often  necessary  to  point 
out  to  the  country  merchant  that  business  men  all  over 
the  country  are  advertising  and  that,  surely,  these 
large,  well-conducted  business  plants  would  not  spend 
such  enormous  sums  in  advertising  appropriations  un- 
less there  was  adequate  and  provable  cash  return. 

The  country  merchant  sees  this  and  admits  it  and  he 
is  usually  willing  to  try  out  the  home  paper  on  a  small 
scale  and  see  for  himself  whether  all  this  talk  about 
advertising  is  true.  To  this  extent  he  is  better  to  deal 
with  than  the  merchant  of  twenty  years  since.  But  he 
is  not  yet  converted,  and  the  efficient  editor  should  not 


258  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

be  satisfied  with  this  experimental  victory  even  though 
it  brings  into  his  pocket  each  month  a  pleasant  cash  in- 
crement. The  merchant  who  has  only  begun  to  believe 
that  advertising  may  pay  and  who  has  decided  to  try  it 
a  while  is  not  yet  converted ;  to  continue  the  trope,  he 
is  only  "under  conviction/' 

It  is  pretty  obvious  to  all  that,  under  given  condi- 
tions, there  is  money  to  be  made  from  advertising. 
But  advertising  means  a  great  deal  more  than  simply 
spreading  display  type  over  white  space.  The  mer- 
chant may  be  willing  to  take  a  column  or  two  every 
week  and  tell  some  facts  in  that  column  concerning  his 
business.  But  he  has  little  chance  to  check  up  on  the 
business-pulling  power  of  his  advertisement  because, 
in  the  first  place,  he  does  not  know  how  and,  in  the  sec- 
ond place,  his  advertising  is  usually  so  diffuse  that  he 
cannot  put  his  finger  down  on  a  certain  sale  and  say 
with  any  confidence :  'The  ad  did  it.''  Too  often, 
especially  if  he  is  a  new  advertiser,  he  looks  for  a 
loaves-and-fishes  miracle  and  does  not  take  into  con- 
sideration that,  as  Wanamaker  said,  "Advertising  does 
not  jerk;  it  pulls."  Expecting  a  sudden  upward  jerk 
in  the  volume  of  sales  and  not  getting  it,  the  advertiser 
becomes  dissatisfied  and  loses  faith  in  the  value  of  the 
home  paper  as  an  advertising  medium.  There  are  hun- 
dreds of  country  merchants  today  who  advertise  in  the 
home  weekly  only  because  their  competitors  do  it,  and 
they  are  ashamed  to  take  their  advertising  out ;  besides, 
they  will  tell  you,  they  feel  that  a  local  paper  in  the 
town  is  a  good  thing  and  ought  to  be  "supported." 

The  editor  who  takes  advertising  under  such  condi- 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    259 

tions  IS  accepting  charity,  and  the  one  who  thinks  that 
his  job  is  done  when  he  has  cajoled  a  business  man  into 
signing  an  advertising  contract,  is  doing  worse  than 
accepting  charity  because  he  is  damaging  the  whole 
field  of  country  advertising  by  his  careless,  slip-shod 
methods  of  selling  space  without  service.  I 

Service  in  Local  Advertising.^What  the  editor 
really  has  to  sell  is  not  so  much  white  space,  so  many 
white  inches ;  his  product  is  service.  The  business  man 
who  buys  nothing  but  white  space  cannot  win  no  mat- 
ter how  low  a  price  he  may  get.  The  man  who  buys 
service  stands  in  a  fair  way  to  be  really  converted  to 
the  value  of  advertising  in  the  home  paper.  In  the 
first  place,  the  editor  should  see  that  the  copy  which 
goes  into  his  ads  is  right.  If  he  does  not  know  good 
copy  when  he  sees  it,  it  is  his  duty  to  make  a  study  of 
the  advertising  he  sees  in  the  exchanges  that  come  to 
his  shop.  Various  trade  journals  to  which  he  ought  to 
subscribe  will  give  him  general  and  technical  informa- 
tion on  this  subject.  The  average  country  merchant 
has  very  little  idea  of  what  constitutes  good  advertis- 
ing copy.  This  makes  it  doubly  hard  for  the  country 
publisher,  for  he  does  not  like  to  antagonize  the  adver- 
tiser by  telling  him  that  the  copy  is  all  wrong.  This 
is  a  real  problem  and  cannot  be  solved  ofif-hand. 

The  editor  should  have  a  full  line  of  information  on 
the  subject  of  advertising  and  should  patiently  show 
the  advertiser  why  this  is  good  and  why  that  is  bad. 
Unless  the  advertiser  is  a  very  opinionated  person,  he 
will  usually  be  glad  to  have  the  editor  help  him  with  the 
copy,  for  the  ordinary  business  man  dislikes  to  pre- 


5t6o  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

pare  advertising  copy.  If  necessary,  show  him  good 
examples  of  advertising  in  other  papers ;  tell  him  that 
the  line  of  advertising  a  paper  carries  shows  to  out- 
siders as  nothing  else  can  do  the  general  business  ac- 
tivities of  the  town.  Prepare  layouts  for  him  from 
the  copy  he  gives  you.  Of  course  this  will  be  addi- 
tional work.  But  the  idea  is  that  you  are  selling  ser- 
vice, and  if  you  do  two  dollars'  worth  of  work  in  laying 
out  a  fifty-cent  ad  for  an  inexperienced  advertiser,  re- 
member that  the  first  thing  is  to  have  a  satisfied  patron 
and  that  future  advertising  contracts  depend  upon  the 
service  rendered  now. 

Price  Advertising. — The  editor  who  wishes  to  give 
service  that  will  pay  the  advertiser  will  do  well  to  urge 
specific  price  advertising.  Big  department  stores  in  the 
cities  are  building  volumes  of  sales  upon  price  adver- 
tising, and  the  country  merchant  can  do  it  too.  Price 
advertising  is  convincing;  it  means  something  easily 
and  definitely  measured.  When  the  country  merchant 
uses  such  loose  phrases  as  "Cheapest  and  Best,"  *'See 
Us  for  Bargains,"  he  does  not  convince  people.  But 
when  he  says,  ''Calico  at  five  cents  a  yard,"  there  is 
definite  information  that  has  advertising  value  both  to 
him  and  to  the  prospective  buyer. 

It  would  be  well  for  the  advertiser  to  rely  more  on 
detailed  though  brief  description  of  goods ;  if  he  does 
not  know  his  goods  well  enough  to  do  this,  the  manu- 
facturers will  gladly  furnish  him  with  facts  that  can 
be  used.  Also,  he  can  sometimes  get  cuts  from  manu- 
facturers *  which  will  go  well  in  his  advertisement. 
There  should  be  some  real  bargain  in  every  advertise- 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    261 

ment;  this  will  teach  people  to  look  for  the  ad  every 
week  and  will  be  a  valuable  drawing  card  for  sales  of 
materials  that  are  not  advertised  in  the  current  issue 
of  the  paper. 

One  of  the  big  problems  in  merchandizing  is  to  get 
people  into  the  store,  and  an  ad  that  will  do  that  will 
always  be  a  good  proposition  far  beyond  the  actual 
sales  of  currently  advertised  articles.  Give  the  buyers 
facts.  They  want  to  know  the  reason  why.  If  adver- 
tising tells  what  the  people  want  to  know,  it  will  be  of 
value  to  the  merchant  and  he  will  have  a  better  opinion 
of  the  worth  of  the  home  paper. 

Typography  of  the  Ad. — The  best  service  to  the 
advertiser  also  presupposes  that  the  printer  is  a  good 
one.  No  matter  how  good  the  copy,  or  how  interesting 
the  business  news,  the  selling  power  of  an  ad  will  be 
restricted  by  poor  display.  It  is  not  likely  that  most 
people  who  read  the  advertisements  in  the  newspaper 
know  anything  about  the  technic  of  printing  and  dis- 
play, but  it  is  almost  certain  that  a  poorly  constructed 
piece  of  ad  work  will  not  have  the  effect  that  a  piece 
of  work  well  done  would  have — the  kind  of  work  tp 
which  the  advertiser  is  entitled. 

.  The  printer  should  have  a  sufficient  variety  of  sizes 
and  faces  of  type  to  give  a  good  finish  to  his  work. 
Most  country  shops  have  too  many  kinds  of  types  and 
not  enough  fonts.  It  would  be  better  to  have  plenty 
of  sorts  and  fewer  series.  Three  or  four  series  of 
type  are  enough  for  the  advertising  end  of  the  country 
weekly,  and  better  typographical  results  are  obtained 
when  ads  are  set  in  only  one  or  two  faces.    Intensive 


262  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

typography,  if  carefully  done,  means  better  typography. 
The  display  should  be  simple.  It  is  a  well-known  fact 
that  ''all  display  is  no  display."  For  that  reason,  the 
merchant's  copy  will  have  to  be  carefully  edited,  for  it 
is  the  tendency  of  the  inexperienced  advertiser  to  want 
too  much  display  and  to  try  to  crowd  in  too  much  copy. 
The  Live  Advertiser. — The  country  merchant 
should  be  shown  that  his  duty  is  not  done  as  soon  as 
he  has  placed  an  advertising  contract  with  the  pub- 
lisher. He  must  do  the  right  kind  of  advertising  and 
the  right  kind  of  hustling  to  get  results.  In  Antler, 
North  Dakota,  there  is  a  store  that  believes  in  price 
advertising  and  comparative-values  advertising.  Some 
time  ago  this  firm  advertised  in  the  local  paper,  giving 
the  prices  of  groceries  and  also  the  prices  demanded 
for  the  same  goods  by  the  Chicago  catalogue  houses. 
At  the  head  of  the  advertisement  appeared  the  follow- 
ing argument  in  favor  of  buying  at  home: 

If  our  town  is  a  detriment,  if  it  increases  the  cost  of 
living  and  gives  nothing  in  return  in  the  way  of  markets, 
accommodations,  etc. ;  if  the  35,000,000  people  in  the 
farming  towns  don't  mean  anything  to  the  prices  and  the 
demand  for  farm  produce,  let  us  do  away  with  it  entirely. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  our  homes,  our  churches,  our 
schools,  our  markets  mean  anything  to  us;  if  the  ac- 
commodations we  get  from  our  town  are  worth  anything 
to  us ;  if  the  increasing  value  of  our  land  and  our  homes 
means  anything  to  us,  if  35,000,000  less  consumers  mean 
anything  to  us  in  price  and  demand  of  farm  products ;  if 
35,000,000  more  people  on  the  farm  and  out  of  the  towns 
would  mean  an  over-production  of  farm  products,  then 
the  towi4-  is  of  value  to  us.  Let  us  work  together  and 
make  it  of  more  value. 

Make  out  your  order,'  pin  your  check  to  it,  hand  it 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     263 

to  us,  and  we  will  fill  your  order  on  the  same  terms  as 
the  mail-order  houses.  Isn't  that  fair?  If  you  don't  be- 
lieve it,  it's  easy  to  find  out. 

This  is  the  sort  of  advertising  that  pays.  It  tells 
something  definite  and  in  a  simple  way.  The  best  ad- 
vertising style  is  not  different  from  the  best  news  style. 
The  aim  of  each  is  to  get  before  the  public  certain  facts 
in  such  a  way  as  to  show  the  reader  exactly  what  the 
wTiter  wished  him  to  see.  Compare  such  advertising 
as  that  mentioned  above  with  the  advertisement  shown 
in  Exhibit  4. 


4nunm  ^isa^i 

Succetsor  to  Frank  Heiting  at  Reseberg  ConeR 
-DBATjFjR  IN- 

Dry  Goods,  Groceries,  Shoes,  Hats, 

Caps  and  A  FULl  and  COMPLETE  UNE  of 

GENERAL  MERCHANDISE 

Having  purchased  the  busioess  from  Mr.  Heitlof?,  I  would  re- 
spectfully ask  for  a  share  of  the  public  patronage  aasu^'ing  every 
customer  fair,  honest  treatment.    Giye  me  a  call. 

Julius  ampc 

Exhibit  4. — Aside  from  being"  typographically  im- 
possible the  above  ad  tells  nothing,  excites  no  curi- 
osity, defines  no  want.  Money  spent  for  this  sort 
of  advertising  is  worse  than  wasted. 

Advertising  Your  Own  Business. — The  editor, 
preaching  the  gospel  of  advertising  to  the  local  busi- 
ness men,  often  forgets  that  he  is  included  in  that  class. 
He  is  continually  trying  to  get  all  the  local  and  na- 


264  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

tional  advertising  his  paper  can  legitimately  carry ;  but 
he  is  too  often  chary  of  using  printer's  ink  to  advertise 
his  ow^n  product.  There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that 
he  can  increase  his  subscription  list  and  make  his  sub- 
scribers better  satisfied  with  the  paper  if  he  will  point 
out,  from  time  to  time,  the  merits  of  his  pubHcation. 
He  cannot  afford  to  be  general;  he  must  play  up  the 
quality  and  the  service  of  the  paper  just  as  the  mer- 
chant goes  into  detail  concerning  the  merit  of  his 
goods.  This  the  editor  can  do  by  the  use  of  calendars, 
blotters,  and  other  common  forms  of  advertising;  but 
he  can  likely  do  it  better  by  the  use  of  advertising  space 
in  the  paper  itself.  The  advertising  will  have  to  be 
clever  and  typographically  perfect,  for  it  will  be 
judged  as  the  best  example  the  editor  has  to  show  of 
his  advertising  ability.  The  newspaper  ads  in  Ex- 
hibit 5a  and  b  show  good  treatment  of  this  sort  of 
advertising. 

V.    National  Advertising 

Advantages  of  the  Country  Field.— The  country 
is  being  recognized  more  and  more  as  the  best  and 
most  attractive  field  for  the  advertising  of  nationally- 
marketed  products,  and  despite  the  difficulties  that  have 
been  attendant  upon  securing  and  conducting  country 
advertising,  the  agencies  are  still  seeking  the  country 
trade  and  are  eager  to  get  country  advertising  service. 
There  are  five  principal  reasons  why  advertising  in 
country  weeklies  is  the  most  profitable  form  of  na- 
tional advertising. 


a 
B 


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B  "o  ? 


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265 


^66  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

( 1 )  The  percentage  of  population  in  the  country  in- 
dicates that  intensive  country  advertising  will  reach 
more  people  than  can  be  reached  in  any  other  way. 
Only  thirty  per  cent  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
live  in  towns  of  25,00.0  or  over.  The  rest  live  in  small 
towns  and  cities  and  in  the  open  country,  and  consti- 
tute what  the  United  States  census  reports  call  "rural 
population."  This  seventy  per  cent  of  the  population 
can  be  reached  by  small  dailies  and  country  weeklies. 

(2)  The  small  papers  have  "quality  circulation.". 
That  is,  they  are  in  all  cases  the  home  paper.  One 
paper  taken  into  the  home  and  read  there  by  the  adult 
members  of  the  household  is  better  than  a  thousand 
left  in  street  cars  or  office  buildings  of  the  city.  The 
small  paper,  too,  as  a  rule,  has  the  confidence  of  its 
readers  and,  if  the  editor  has  been  as  careful  as  he 
should  have  been  to  censor  undesirable  advertising,  the 
articles  advertised  there  will  get  the  advantage  of  the 
confidence  the  readers  have  in  the  integrity  of  the  ed- 
itor and  the  cleanness  of  the  paper.  Fifteen  years  ago 
the  cry  of  advertisers  was  for  bulk  circulation,  but 
now  at  every  meeting  of  advertising  men  the  problem 
of  getting  good  papers  with  a  quality  circulation  is 
prominently  discussed.  The  country  paper  offers  this 
sort  of  circulation  as  can  no  other  publication. 

(3)  The  people  who  live  in  the  trade  zones  of  the 
country  papers  have  money  to  spend.  The  farmer  has 
come  into  his  own  so  far  as  prosperity  is  concerned. 
The  following  figures  taken  from  the  Advertising 
News  of  X)ctober  27,  19 16,  are  most  illuminating  in 
this  connection: 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     267 

During  a  recent  year  the  farmers  of  the  United  States 
bought,  in  addition  to  the  many  million  dollars'  worth 
of  foodstuffs,  clothing,  furniture,  farm  machinery,  and 
building  materials — $90,000,000  worth  of  automobiles; 
$40,000,000  worth  of  player-pianos  and  organs;  $11,000,- 
000  worth  of  phonographs;  $5,000,000  worth  of  type- 
writers; $1,000,000  worth  of  furnaces;  $500,000  worth 
of  porcelain  bathtubs ;  $500,000  worth  of  good  pictures ; 
$275,000  worth  of  good  books;  $100,000  worth  of  sheet 
music. 

In  addition  to  this,  they  added  to  the  value  of  the 
houses  in  which  they  lived,  either  by  building  or  remod- 
eling, $4,450,000.  They  paid  out  $1,750,000  for  farm 
buildings,  and  after  paying  $15,000,000  in  school  taxes, 
they  still  had  enough  small  change  left  to  build  and  pay 
for  14,000  church  buildings  costing  an  average  of  over 
$8,000  each. 

Thirty-one  thousand  farmers  and  their  families  from 
the  state  of  Iowa  spent  last  winter  in  southern  California. 
Thirteen  thousand  five  hundred  more  went  from  the 
same  state  to  Florida.  Twenty-one  per  cent  of  the  tick- 
ets sold  for  trans-Atlantic  passage  in  New  York  during 
one  month  before  the  war  were  sold  to  farmers. 


The  farmer  has  money  to  spend,  and  that  he  spends 
it  is  evidenced  by  the  above;  also  by  the  fact  that  the 
mail-order  houses  in  Chicago  cashed  64  per  cent  of  all 
money  orders  in  Chicago  during  one  year. 

(4)  There  are  cheaper  rates  for  advertising  in  the 
country  papers  than  in  the  large  national  magazines 
and  weeklies.  One  of  these  magazines  charges  as  high 
as  $8  an  agate  line  for  its  space — and-  gets  it.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  these  magazines  do  not  circulate  so 
widely  in  the  country  as  they  do  in  the  cities.  The 
only  paper  that  has  a  general  circulation  in  the  country 
is  the  home  paper.    It  goes  into  rural  homes  where  70 


268  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

per  cent  of  the  people  live  and  where  the  purchasing 
power  is  greater  per  capita  than  in  any  other  place. 
And  yet  the  advertising  agencies  have  estimated  that 
they  could  cover  a  given  territory  much  more  effec- 
tively and  completely  through  the  country  papers  than 
through  any  other  medium,  and  at  a  saving  of  nearly 
70  per  cent. 

(5)  The  country  weekly  offers  the  best  and  about 
the  only  chance  to  do  ''spot"  advertising.  Conditions 
have  changed  in  the  past  fifteen  years,  and  there  are 
very  few  products  that  could  hope  to  take  the  country 
by  storm  as  did  the  Uneeda  Biscuit  advertising  cam- 
paign. New  products  now  have  to  get  publicity  a  little^ 
at  a  time.  They  cannot  afford  to  try  a  big  national 
medium  like  the  Saturday  Evening  Post.  Suppose 
they  decide  to  limit  their  initial  advertising  to  the  state 
of  Iowa  where  the  farm  values  are  higher  than  in  any 
other  state.  The  advertising  appropriation  will  go 
farther  if  spent  in  the  country  weeklies,  and  there  will 
be  an  excellent  chance  to  check  up  results. 

After  the  product  is  well  placed  in  Iowa,  there  will 
likely  be  enough  money  made  in  the  sale  of  goods  to 
warrant  an  extension  of  the  advertising  campaign  into 
other  states.  Intensive  community  and  state  cam- 
paigns have  been  the  means  of  building  up  many  prod- 
ucts that  are  now  prosperous  enough  to  take  national 
advertising.  The'scientific  and  careful  advertiser  must 
choose  his  territory  carefully  and  he  must  pick  the 
right  kind  of  mediums  to  carry  this  advertising. 

The  CQmmunity  Survey. — The  country  pubKsher 
who  v/ishes  to  get  foreign  advertising  of  nationally- 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     269 

marketed  products  must  begin  with  the  old  idea  of  ren- 
dering service.  The  potential  advertiser  is  entitled  to 
know  all  the  facts  about  the  community  in  which  the 
paper  circulates,  and  to  know  all  about  the  paper.  In 
other  words,  placing  advertising  is  a  business  deal  and 
cannot  be  done  properly  with  profit  to  all  concerned 
unless  all  the  facts  are  known.  For  that  reason  the 
publisher  will  have  no  little  preparatory  work  to  do 
before  he  is  in  a  position  to  solicit  advertising  from 
foreign  concerns. 

The  first  thing  to  which  he  should  turn  his  attention 
is  the  compilation  of  a  survey  of  merchandising  con- 
ditions in  his  trade  basin.  This  will  have  to  be  very 
complete  and  will  call  for  careful  attention  to  details 
if  it  is  to  be  trustworthy  and  of  real  value  to  him  in 
securing  national  advertising.  A  great  mass  of  infor- 
mation will  have  to  be  collected  bearing  on  every  pos- 
sible angle  of  the  business  situation  in  the  town  and. 
surrounding  territory.  The  following  points  will  have 
to  be  made  clear:  Population,  increase  or  decrease 
since  latest  census  together  with  the  reason,  principal 
occupations,  nationalities  represented,  approximate 
percentage  of  the  various  nationalities,  proportion 
reading  English,  approximate  number  of  families  in 
town,  approximate  number  of  residents  owning  their 
homes,  number  owning  motor  cars,  estimated  average 
income  or  wage  per  family,  total  annual  pay  roll  of 
industries,  estimated  amount  of  annual  business  done 
by  local  stores,  bank  deposits,  town  *'wet''  or  "dry," 
organizations  for  town  and  community  development. 

The  chief  industries  of  the  town  must  be  listed  sepa- 


270  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

rately,  together  with  the  number  of  people  employed 
and  the  average  annual  pay  roll.  Also  the  survey 
should  indicate  whether  any  of  these  concerns  adver- 
tises in  magazines,  newspapers,  street  cars,  or  on  bill- 
boards. A  list  of  all  the  stores  and  moving-picture 
houses  is  given  and  the  stores  are  classified  in  groups 
according  to  principal  lines  carried'  In  this  section, 
too,  is  given  a  list  of  the  stores  which  have  signed  an 
agreement  to  cooperate  with  all  local  newspaper  ad- 
vertising campaigns.  All  civic  improvements,  civic  ac- 
tivities to  attract  farmers,  school  statistics,  etc.,  are 
included  in  the  survey.  There  is  also  a  list  of  buyers 
of  farm  products  with  an  estimate  of  the  total  annual 
payment  to  the  farmers. 

The  survey  of  the  farm  territory  comprised  within 
the  trade  basin  of  the  town  would  show  the  population, 
estimated  buying  power  of  the  farmers,  the  per  cent 
owning  farms,  average  size  of  the  farms,  principal 
crops  and  dairy  products,  percentage  of  farmers  own- 
ing motor  cars,  the  conditions  of  roads,  and  the  extent 
to  which  the  farmers  are  supplied  with  telephone  ser- 
vice. Both  the  town  business  section  and  the  rural 
section  are  graphically  shown  by  the  use  of  a  small 
scale  map. 

Facts  About  the  Paper. — ^After  giving  the  busi- 
ness facts  concerning  the  community,  the  publisher 
should  give  in  detail  the  facts  about  his  paper:  Its 
name,  size,  frequency  of  issue,  number  of  pages,  cir- 
culation together  with  the  ratio  of  town  to  country 
subscribei^s,  the  equipment,  number  employed,  the 
average  num^ber  of  inches  of  local  and  of  foreign  ad- 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     271 

vertising,  the  number  of  local  stores  that  advertise  in 
the  paper,  whether  the  paper  is  home  print  or  ready 
print,  number  of  rural  correspondents,  and  the  kinds 
of  advertising  (if  any)  which  are  excluded  from  the 
paper.  To  this  are  added  in  detail  the  pledges  of  co- 
operation which  the  publisher  has  secured  from  the 
local  merchants.  This  is,  of  course,  very  important 
because  the  national  advertiser  will  be  much  more 
likely  to  take  space  in  the  country  paper  if  the  mer- 
chants who  carry  his  products  will  cooperate  with  him 
in  the  local  advertising  campaign. 

The  National-Rate  Card. — When  the  publisher  has 
completed  this  careful  and  detailed  survey  of  the  com- 
munity, the  next  step  is  the  computing  of  a  rate  card 
to  include  with  the  survey.  This  rate  card  is  a  stum- 
bling block  in  the  path  of  many  country  publishers. 
It  is  here  assumed  that  a  card  has  been  prepared  for 
local  advertisers,  giving  the  price  of  the  cheapest  inch 
and  following  the  sliding  scale. 

The  first  requisite  of  a  rate  card  for  national  ad- 
vertisers is  that  it  be  simple.  For  this  reason  a  flat  rate 
is  preferable  to  a  sliding  rate;  the  busy  advertising 
agent  has  neither  time  nor  inclination  to  figure  out  the 
rate  per  inch  and  a  changing  rate  for  every  hundred 
inches.  The  advertiser  knows  that,  if  there  is  a  guar- 
anteed flat  rate,  he  is  getting  just  as  cheap  a  rate  as 
someone  else.  The  "peak  load^'  argument  does  not 
appeal  to  the  national  advertiser.  The  publisher  must 
decide  upon  a  net  rate  which  he  considers  fair  and  add 
to  this  a  sufficient  amount  to  care  for  the  agency  and 
representative  commission.     He  can  figure  that  this 


272  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

cost  will  be  about  thirty  per  cent.  Since  his  rate  card 
for  local  use  is  net,  the  increase  should  properly  be 
borne  by  the  national  advertiser. 

The  figuring  of  national  rates  confuses  some  pub- 
lishers who  have  not  given  the  matter  much  thought, 
but  it  is  really  quite  simple.  Let  us  suppose,  for  ex- 
ample, that  the  publisher  has  decided  that  a  flat  rate 
of  17  cents  an  inch  net  is  satisfactory.  The  simplest 
way  to  take  care  of  the  30  per  cent  commission  and 
representative  fee  is  to  add  45  per  cent,  making  the 
gross  cost  per  inch  roughly  24.5  cents;  then  the  deduc- 
tion of  30  per  cent  for  the  agency  and  representative 
commission  will  leave  the  net  17  cents  and  a  small 
fraction.  The  price  to  be  quoted  as  a  flat  rate  to  the 
national  advertiser  would  be  about  25  cents.  This  is 
a  proper  charge  because  the  publisher  has  found  that 
his  rate  of  17  cents  is  the  cheapest  he  can  accept  with- 
out loss;  hence  if  he  sold  space  to  the  national  adver- 
tiser at  that  rate  and  then  paid  the  commission,  he 
would  be  losing'  money  on  every  national  contract  he 
signed. 

The  rate  card  should  be  printed  on  both  sides  of 
good  stiff  Bristol  board  that  will  bear  rough  usage 
and  constant  handling,  and  it  should  be  of  a  size  that 
will  make  it  convenient  to  file.  On  this  card,  along 
with  complete  information  concerning  the  paper,  the 
community,  and  the  rates,  should  appear  the  name  and 
address  of  the  national-advertising  representative. 
This  is  important  because,  if  the  representative's  name 
is  given,  •the  agencies  can  enter  at  once  into  negotia- 
tions with  him  without  first  writing  to  the  publisher. 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     273 

An  example  of  a  model  rate  card  for  the  country  pub- 
lisher is  shown  in  Exhibit  6.  It  should  be  inclosed 
with  the  community  survey  in  a  file  folder  so  they  can 
be  filed  together,  making  complete  information  readily 
accessible.     Such  a  file  folder  is  shown  in  Exhibit  7. 


A  Model  Rate   Card 

As  oUidally  approved  by  the  Acsociation  of  Nev  York  Advertising  A|eats 


AGENCY  RATE  CARD 


(Nama  •!  tovm,  county  and  sUt*).   (Nam*  of  pap«r).  Published  (day  of  weak).    N«c.of  stores... 

Circulation..... ...«,    Publiahar.. v.. Establishad ,...    No.of  banks..^ 

Cireulatlen  In  town..........     Circulation  on  local  rural  routes N«.of  chi»reh«a.«- 

Populatlen  of  town .«....«.«»  Population  of  local  rural  routes,.. Loading  industry ,.*^.. 

RATE ^^CENTS  PER  INCH  FUT 

Ty)fo  aizo'paga.-... inches.    No.  of  columns.   .        Slxo  of  eolumna..-...lncho»i    No.  of  pa90a>««. 
No  special  positions.    Classified  rates  on  application.     Subscription    prise.. ........ >.^^..>^j .  ■  ■ .  — 

Composition.,.- cents  per  inch.    Can  (or  cannot)  use  mate.        Politics... « ,^..-.^. 

All  home  print.    Bills  rendered,  on  1st  of  sach  month.      Effective    Feb.    1,    1917. 
ftecognlsed  agents'  commission,  15  per  cent.  Cish  discount  2  percent  In  ISdaySb 

REPRESENTATIVES.— (Print  hare  address  of  New  York  and  Chicago  represonUtlvos, ^so.  for 
example,  American  Press  Association,  New  York  office.  22S  West  Thirtyninth  street;  Chicago 
office,  Room  634,  People's  Qas  Building). 


Exhibit  6. — A  "model"  foreign  rate  card.  All  necessary 
information  is  included. 

Sticking  to  the  Rate. — The  country  publisher  has 
lost  thousands  of  dollars  because  his  backbone  has  not 
been  stiff  enough,  and  because  he  did  tiot  carry  on  his 
business  efficiently.  The  vital  thing  in  national  ad- 
vertising is  to  make  a  fair  rate  and  stick  to  it;  the 
necessity  for  this  cannot  be  overemphasized.  There 
must  be  no  rate-cutting;  the  editor  who  cuts  rates 
spoils  his  own  chance  to  get  fair  rates,  and  hurts  the 
chance  of  every  other  country  publisher.    Advertising 


274 


THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  DIVISION 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 

WISCONSIN  FEDERATED  PRINTING  AND  PRESS  ASSOCIATIONS 

and  [department  of  Joumalitin 

MADISON.  WISCONSIN 

Compilation  ol  Data  oa 

Merchandising  Conditions 


(Couoty) 

WISCONSIN 


Population   of   County 


Exhibit  7. — The  kind  of  file  folder  in  which  to  send  the 
rate  card  and  the  community  survey. 

agencies  complain  that  country  papers  quote  rates  to 
which  they  do  not  hold  and,  as  a  result,  the  advertiser 
never  knows  whether  he  is  getting  the  lowest  rate  the 
paper  has^to  ofifer,  or  whether  someone  else  has  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  a  still  lower  rate.     Space  may  be 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     275 

worth  20  cents  an  inch  net  in  a  certain  paper,  but  if 
one  agency  is  paying  a  rate  of  20  cents  and  some  other 
concern  gets  a  rate  of  15  cents,  the  man  who  pays  the 
higher  rate  is  being  discriminated  against  by  the  pref- 
erential rate.  We  do  not  allow  the  railroads  to  do  that 
sort  of  thing  any  more  and  there  is  neither  sense  nor 
justice  in  allowing  the  papers  to  do  it.  There  ought 
to  be  some  way  of  making  it  a  misdemeanor  for  a 
publisher  to  quote  a  rate  on  his  card  and  then  back 
down  from  it  in  private  agreements. 

Since  there  seems  to  be  no  way  of  regulating  the 
business  by  statute  at  present,  the  best  way  that  re- 
mains is  by  the  education  of  opinion  among  the  pub- 
lishers themselves.  Give  every  agency  a  fair  rate  and 
stick  to  it;  discontinue  all  reading  notices  and  other 
things  that  have  a  tendency  to  give  one  concern  a  little 
preference  over  another.  Advertising  will  come  if  the 
agencies  can  be  convinced  that  you  are  doing  business 
on  an  absolutely  square  basis.  It  is  not  so  much  a 
high  price  that  agencies  object  to  as  unfair  discrimina- 
tion so  often  shown.  If  a  letter  comes  offering  you  a 
contract  at  less  than  the  figures  on  your  rate  card, 
refer  the  concern  to  your  card;  if  copy  is  sent  asking 
you  to  begin  to  run  at  once,  hold  it  until  you  get  the 
contract  specifying  exactly  the  number  of  inches, 
length  of  time,  and  so  on.  Probably  it  will  be  better 
not  to  give  position  at  all  on  national  matter,  but  to 
make  all  contracts  for  run  of  paper.  Answer  all  letters 
promptly  and  courteously.  Agencies  make  the  com- 
plaint that  they  cannot  get  prompt  replies  from  country 
publishers  either  on  new  business  or  on  old.    This  is 


276  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

often  true,  and  if  the  country  publisher  is  going  to  get 
his  share  of  the  advertising  money,  he  will  have  to 
cultivate  better  business  methods. 

Sworn  Circulation.^!  f  the  paper  has  a  sworn  cir- 
culation, the  editor  will  find  it  much  easier  to  get  na- 
tional advertising.  If  his  figures  appear  in  bold-face 
in  Ayer's  Directory  where  all  agencies  can  find  them, 
those  agencies  will  know  when  his  rate  card  comes  be- 
fore them  just  what  sort  of  service  he  can  render  so 
far  as  bulk  circulation  is  concerned.  It  would  be  a 
very  good  idea  to  leave  space  on  the  rate  card  for  the 
seal  and  signature  of  a  notary  public  showing  beyond 
question  that  your  circulation  has  been  sworn.  This 
has  been  tried  with  notable  success  in  some  instances 
and  is  recommended  as  an  effective  help  in  getting 
national  advertising. 

Too  many  country  publishers  hesitate  to  swear  their 
circulation  because  it  is  small.  They  fear  that  it  will 
keep  them  from  getting  national  advertising.  A  small 
circulation  is  no  hindrance  to  getting  advertising.  Of 
course,  a  Class  ''C  paper  cannot  hope  to  get  Class 
"A''  rates,  and  it  does  not  deserve  them ;  but  an  agency 
will  not  discriminate  against  a  small  circulation  if  it 
is  sworn  and  the  rates  are  properly  fixed.  A  paper 
with  300  circulation  may  prove  to  be  a  perfectly  satis- 
factory medium  if  the  agency  knows  that  the  paper  has 
only  300  subscribers;  but  a  paper  of  this  sort  that 
vaguely  claims  600  will  likely  be  dropped  because  the 
returns  will  not  come  in  satisfactorily,  since  they  have 
been  figured  on  a  larger  circulation  than  the  paper  has. 

Reputable  Representation. — The  best  way  for  the 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     277 

country  publisher  to  do  business  with  national  adver- 
tisers is  through  reputable  representatives.  These 
firms  are  in  close  touch  with  the  various  agencies  which 
have  charge  of  the  advertising  appropriations  of  large 
concerns.  They  are  able  to  get  contracts  in  cases 
where  the  editor  himself  could  not,  and  they  will  at  all 
times  look  after  the  interests  of  their  clients.  They 
know  the  commercial  rating  of  the  various  agencies 
and  will  collect  on  time  and  in  full  the  amounts  due  to 
the  publishers.  Such  an  organization  as  the  American 
Press  Association  is  doing  a  great  work  for  the  coun- 
try publisher  in  raising  rates,  getting  business  for  the 
small  papers,  publishing  lists  of  reliable  advertising 
agencies,  and  pleading  for  better  business  methods 
among  the  rural  publishers.  A  great  many  country 
publishers  get  all  their  contracts  for  national  adver- 
tising through  such  organizations  as  the  above  and  this 
splendid  service  is  bringing  thousands  of  dollars  into 
the  rural  field  every  year. 

Cooperation  with  Advertisers.— The  country  pa- 
per which  is  ready  to  cooperate  with  national  adver- 
tisers is  the  one  that  gets  the  business,  for,  if  the  best 
results  are  to  be  obtained  from  outside  advertising, 
there  will  have  to  be  cooperation.  As  suggested  by 
the  community  survey,  the  advertiser  wants  to  know  to 
what  extent  the  dealers  in  the  country  will  feature  his 
product  if  he  carries  advertising  in  the  local  papers. 
The  merchants  are  usually  glad  to  do  this  by  means  of 
posters,  counter  displays,  or  demonstrations,  for  in- 
creased sales  in  the  territory  will  mean  greater  profit 
for  them.    If  they  are  carrying  Gold  Medal  flour,  for 


278  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

example,  advertising  placed  in  the  home  paper  by  the 
manufacturers  will  help  the  local  business;  it  is  as  good 
for  the  country  merchant  as  getting  advertising  for 
nothing. 

One  purpose  of  advertising  an  article  as  a  ''leader'* 
is  to  get  people  into  the  store  in  the  hope  that  while 
there  they  will  see  something  else  that  they  will  buy. 
National  advertising  supplies  this  urge  without  cost 
to  the  local  merchant.  If  a  farmer  comes  in  to  get  a 
sack  of  Gold  Medal  flour  which  is  being  advertised  in 
the  home  paper,  there  is  a  good  chance  that  he  will  buy 
something  else  which  he  might  have  bought  elsewhere 
unless  he  had  ''happened"  to  come  in  to  buy  the  flour. 
The  more  national  advertising  there  is  in  the  local  pa- 
per, the  better  it  is  for  the  merchants  who  handle 
widely  advertised  articles — and  most  of  them  do  that 
now.  As  a  rule,  too,  these  national  ads  are  better  and 
more  attractive  than  those  the  merchant  or  editor 
writes;  in  addition  to  that,  they  are  more  economical 
for  the  publisher,  because  many  of  them  are  on  elec- 
tros and  do  not  have  to  be  set.  The  national  advertis- 
ing business  helps  everyone  concerned. 

The  ''Norfolk  News.''— Arthur  Brisbane,  editor 
of  the  New  York  Journal,  has  made  the  assertion  that, 
if  country  papers  will  take  advantage  of  the  possibili- 
ties of  national  advertising,  they  ought  to  make  $6  per 
year  per  subscriber.  This  sounds  like  a  dream,  but 
one  man  made  that  dream  come  true.  Norris  A.  Huse, 
formerly  editor  of  the  Norfolk  (Nebraska)  News,  a 
country  daily,  claims  to  have  made  that  much  from 
his  paper.     Last  year   (191 6)   he  published  $50,000 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     279 

worth  of  advertising;  $30,000  national,  and  $20,000 
local. 

The  whole  secret  of  Mr.  Huse's  success  lay  in  busi- 
nesslike methods  and  excellent  advertising  service. 
He  cooperated  with  every  advertiser.  He  made  rural 
surveys ;  he  canvassed  the  county  to  see  how  much  of 
certain  goods  was  sold.  If  he  thought  there  was  a 
chance  for  profitable  advertising  (profitable  to  the  ad- 
vertiser, note)  he  went  after  it  and  usually  got  it.  If 
he  thought  it  would  not  go,  he  could  not  be  induced  to 
accept  it,  because  he  wished  to  have  no  dissatisfied 
patrons.  Of  course  the  case  of  the  Norfolk  News  is 
exceptional,  but  it  is  useful  as  showing  what  may  be 
done  to  some  extent  in  every  paper  in  the  country. 
Good  business  methods  and  cooperative  service  will 
go  far  toward  raising  any  paper  out  of  the  ruck  of 
poor  business  returns. 

Home  Print  Versus  Ready-Print. — There  are  cer- 
tain conditions  in  the  country  office  which  make  the 
ready-print  an  almost  unavoidable  necessity  in  some 
shops;  but  there  is  little  doubt  that  it  has  done  more 
to  hurt  the  editor's  chance  of  profitable  national  ad- 
vertising than  any  other  one  thing.  Most  of  these 
,  ready-prints  carry  advertising  averaging  from  30  to 
60  inches  to  each  four  pages.  For  this  advertising  the 
publishers  get  no  money,  and  the  space  is  sold  to  ad- 
vertisers at  a  rate  of  about  two  cents  an  inch.  Now, 
when  the  advertising  representatives  of  the  country 
papers  go  to  these  concerns  and  ask  for  advertising, 
they  are  laughed  at  because  the  advertisers  are  getting 
all  the  space  they  want  at  about  ten  per  cent  of  what 


28o  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

an  agency  usually  asks  for  it.  The  fact,  too,  that  such 
advertising  placed  on  the  ''patent  inside"  of  the  paper 
does  not  have  the  pulling  pov^er  it  should  have  hurts 
the  business  of  the  home-print  man,  because  adver- 
tisers are  likely  to  draw  the  conclusion  that  country 
advertising  in  general  does  not  pay,  forgetting  that 
such  ''patent"  advertising  gets  no  cooperation  from  the 
publisher. 

The  ready-print  ad  is  stealing  money  from  its  users 
every  week.  If  it  is  really  necessary  to  use  ready- 
print,  the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  use  the  adless  service 
or  to  take  a  service  with  advertising  which  will  pay 
about  one  cent  per  inch  per  hundred  of  circulation. 
While  this  will  be  below  the  standard  rate,  it  will  be 
much  better  than  getting  nothing  from  the  advertising 
on  the  inside  of  the  paper.  Such  service  as  this  may  be 
secured  from  the  "patent  inside"  people.  To  the  con- 
scientious publisher  there  is  also  the  added  disadvan- 
tage of  not  being  able  to  censor  the  inside  advertising. 
Much  of  it  is  fake  nostrum  advertising  that  ought  not 
to  be  allowed  in  any  paper. 

Foreign  Classified  Wants. — The  want-ad  field  has 
been  much  neglected  by  country  publishers,  and  yet  it 
is  a  field  where  quick  profits  can  be  made.  One  good 
way  to  get  this  sort  of  advertising  is  to  watch  the  ex- 
changes for  want  ads,  cut  them  out,  paste  them  on 
a  sheet  of  paper  and  send  them  to  the  advertiser  quot- 
ing rates,  and  reasons  for  believing  that  he  would  do 
well  to  advertise  in  your  locality.  This  advertising  is 
not  usually  hard  to  get  and  may  be  run  at  a  good  profit. 
There  is  room  in  almost  every  country  paper  for  the 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     281 

development  of  a  good  business  in  the  foreign  want-ad 
line,  and  rural  publishers  cannot  afford  to  neglect  it. 

VI.    Mail-Order  Advertising 

The  question,  "Shall  I  accept  mail-order  advertis- 
ing?'' is  one  which  is  vexing  hundreds  of  country  pub- 
lishers. Too  often  the  country  editor,  in  his  zeal  for 
home  institutions,  rejects  this  attractive  advertising 
which  is  easy  to  get  and  which  pays  well.  The  col- 
umns of  the  paper  are  open  week  after  week  to  tell  the 
public  to  *'buy  at  home  and  foster  home  industries.'' 
This  is  right,  but  the  editor  should  not  be  forced  to 
"boost"  for  nothing.  The  question  of  mail-order  com- 
petition is  one  that  will  have  to  be  settled  by  the  home 
merchants  themselves.  In  the  final  analysis  it  depends 
upon  these  business  men  whether  the  home  paper  ac- 
cepts this  advertising  from  firms  in  competition  with 
the  local  stores.  The  editor  who  blindly  rejects  mail- 
order advertising  when  the  home  concerns  are  not  tak- 
ing so  much  space  as  they  should,  is  no  business  man. 
"Because  the  crab  has  such  a  kind  heart,"  says  a  Creole 
proverb,  "he  has  no  head." 

The  editor  is  supposed  to  be  a  business  man  and  is 
in  the  publishing  business  because  of  the  chance  of 
legitimate  gain.  If  people  at  home  do  not  wish  to 
take  advantage  of  the  publicity  his  columns  afiford, 
certainly  he  has  a  legal  and  an  ethical  right  to  sell  his 
space  elsewhere.  The  merchant  is  glad  of  the  chance 
to  sell  his  goods  to  people  who  live  in  other  towns,  and 
whose  trade  belongs  to  another  trade  basin.    He  is  just 


282  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

as  eager  for  outside  business  as  any  of  the  great  mail- 
order houses.  If  he  could  do  business  on  as  large  a 
scale  as  these  big  concerns,  he  would  be  glad  to  do  it. 

Too  often  the  merchant  uses  advertising  stationery 
furnished  to  him  by  some  flour  concern  or  purveyor  of 
axle  grease,  gets  his  envelopes  with  a  printed  return 
from  the  government  printing  office,  advertises  scant- 
ily or  not  at  all  with  the  home  publisher,  and  then 
objects  vigorously  when  the  local  paper  accepts  mail- 
order advertising.  If  the  merchant  thinks  that  ad- 
vertising in  the  local  paper  would  help  the  mail-order 
concern,  he  ought  to  admit  that  it  would  help  him  too. 
His  argument  is  not  sound  in  a  case  like  this.  It  is 
manifestly  unfair. 

The  editor  should  go  to  these  business  men  and  make 
a  straightforward  proposition  to  the  effect  that,  if  they 
will  give  him  a  proper  volume  of  advertising,  he  will 
not  need  to  accept  outside  advertising  from  firms  in 
competition  with  them.  He  should  point  out  that  the 
one  thing  which  has  made  these  mail-order  concerns 
grow  to  such  gigantic  proportions  is  that  they  have 
advertised  consistently  and  effectively  in  the  trade 
zones  from  which  they  wished  to  draw  business.  It  is 
not  the  values  which  these  concerns  offer  that  attract 
people  primarily;  it  is  the  clever  advertising.  It  is 
true  that  big  business  can  buy  in  immense  lots  and  get 
reductions  in  cost  price.  But  the  cost  of  doing  busi- 
ness is  great;  the  advertising,  overhead,  and  salary 
cost  are  tremendous.  It  is  evident  that  if  one  of  these 
concerns  can  clear  $100,000,000  net  profit  in  a  year, 
mail-order  prices  are  not  so  much  lower  after  all. 


ADVERTISING  IN   COUNTRY  WEEKLY    283 

The  local  dealer  who  is  alive  to  his  opportunity,  can 
meet  this  competition  in  almost  every  instance.  In  his 
store  the  article  can  be  examined.  If  it  is  found  un- 
satisfactory, it  can  be  returned  or  exchanged  with  a 
minimum  of  trouble  and  time.  It  can  be  bought  at 
once  and  taken  home  without  a  wait  for  the  goods. 
There  is  no  freight  nor  postage  to  add  to  the  marked 
price  of  the  article.  The  local  dealer  has  the  advan- 
tage if  he  is  shrewd  enough  to  take  every  opportunity. 
All  these  things  should  be  pointed  out  to  the  ousiness 
men  and  then  they  can  decide  whether  the  publisher 
will  have  to  accept  mail-order  advertising. 
•     An  editorial  in  the  Fourth  Estate  says : 

Lack  of  publicity  on  the  part  of  local  merchants  in 
Kansas  last  year  (1914)  lost  them  in  the  neighborhood 
of  $3,745,000,  according  to  an  estimate  based  on  a  social 
survey  of  Sumner  county.  The  survey  was  made  under 
the  direction  of  the  state  board  of  health  and  shows  that 
73  per  cent  of  the  farmers  are  patrons  of  the  mail-order 
houses,  and  send  an  average  of  $28.85  ^  Y^^^  to  foreign 
concerns.  This  makes  a  total  for  the  county  of  $200,000 
spent  on  mail  orders. 

It  was  explained  by  the  agriculturists  when  the  Sum- 
ner county  survey  was  made  that  they  received  the  bulky 
mail-order  catalogues  regularly;  that  the  local  merchants 
in  many  instances  did  not  advertise,  and  those  that  did 
often  failed  to  quote  prices;  that  the  mail-order  houses 
brought  their  stores  to  the  farmers  through  publicity, 
and  the  latter  bought. 

Here  is  an  argument  in  favor  of  advertising.  In 
Sumner  county  there  is  a  population  of  30,000  and  a 
per  capita  expenditure  with  the  mail-order  houses  of 
nearly  $7.     If  conditions  in  Sumner  county  are  typi- 


284  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

cal,  there  must  be  nearly  $4,000,000  spent  annually 
with  the  mail-order  houses  by  the  farmers  of  Kansas. 
Summary. — Advertising  is  a  matter  of  service  at- 
tained through  cooperation,  good  will,  and  the  proper 
and  artistic  use  of  typographical  effects.  It  is  a  per- 
fectly legitimate  and  honest  business,  and  only  the  ed- 
itor who  is  businesslike  and  alert  can  give  proper  co- 
operation. It  is  the  chief  source  of  revenue  for  the 
paper  and  should  be  carefully  looked  after.  A  fair 
rate  should  be  determined  and  then  should  be  rigor- 
ously adhered  to.  An  advertising  contract  that  in- 
volves a  loss  of  any  kind  is  better  left  alone.  The  man 
who  makes  a  fair  rate  and  maintains  it  is  the  man  who 
gets  the  business  and  the  confidence  of  the  agencies. 
The  country  field  is  the  best  field  for  advertising,  and 
the  publisher  who  does  all  he  can  to  bring  out  the  pos- 
sibilities of  that  field  will  go  far  toward  attaining  the 
promised  six  dollars  per  year  per  subscriber. 

Suggestions 

Know  your  costs  when  making  your  rate. 
Use  the  sliding  scale  for  local  advertising,  in  order 
to  make  your  rates  just. 

When  you  have  a  rate,  STICK ! 

Get  reputable  representation. 

Extend  a  reasonable  cooperation  to  all  adv^ertisers. 

Carry  out  all  advertising  contracts  to  the  letter. 

Don't  give  position  on  national  advertising. 

Answer  all  letters  promptly  and  courteously. 


ADVERTISING  IN  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     285 

Try  to  avoid  all  dead  ads.  Get  your  merchants  to 
change  ads  weekly. 

Turn  a  deaf  ear  to  all  space-grafters. 

Don't  trade  advertising  for  anything;  sell  it  for 
money. 

Advertise  your  own  business. 

Swear  your  circulation.    It  will  be  a  business-getter. 

Teach  your  local  advertisers  that  '^advertising  does 
not  jerk;  it  pulls." 

Don't  use  ready-prints  if  you  can  help  it.  If  you  do, 
use  an  ad  less  service  or  one  that  pays  for  the  inside 
advertising. 

Remember  that  you  are  selling  service,  and  that 
includes  good  will  and  artistic  typographical  results. 

If  you  receive  cash  with  an  order  at  less  than  your 
rates,  send  it  back. 

If  an  agency  writes  you  that  there  is  a  prospect  of 
several  thousand  inches  of  *'new  business"  if  you  will 
cut  a  little,  pay  no  attention  to  it.    It  is  an  old  game. 

Exclude  all  questionable  advertising  from  your  pa- 
per. It  will  make  your  space  more  valuable  and  will 
make  you  feel  virtuous. 

Remember  that  the  publisher  is  responsible  for  the 
poor  opinion  so  many  agencies  have  of  the  country 
editor.    Do  your  bit  to  dispel  that  fixed  idea. 


CHAPTER    XI 
COST  FINDING  FOR  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

The  *'Why''  of  Cost  Finding.— In  Chapter  I  of 
this  discussion  one  of  the  three  main  problems  of  the 
country  weekly  was  given  as  the  problem  of  cost  find- 
ing. The  present  chapter  will  deal  with  that  problem 
and  will  attempt  to  show  that  a  modern,  dependable, 
simple  system  of  cost  finding  can  be  installed  and  op- 
erated in  every  country  office. 

The  fact  that  in  19 12  the  country  weekly  stood  prac- 
tically at  the  foot  of  business  in  credit  ratings  shows 
that  there  is  something  radically  wrong  somxewhere. 
In  the  state  of  Kansas,  for  example,  a  state  in  which 
the  average  newspaper  excellence  is  rather  high,  82. 
per  cent  of  the  publishing  business  was  operating  under 
mortgage.  The  field  is  not  crowded  in  Kansas ;  there 
are  less  than  six  weeklies  to  each  county  and  some  of 
the  counties  are  of  great  extent.  Business  in  Kansas 
was  probably  as  good,  at  least,  as  business  in  other 
parts  of  the  Middle  West.  That  these  editors  should 
give  their  whole  time  to  the  conducting  of  a  newspaper 
and  printing  business,  and  that  only  eighteen  of  every 
hundred  should  own  their  shops  seems  strange. 

There  is  money  in  the  rural  newspaper  business  if 
it  is  properly  conducted;  at  legitimate  prices  there  is 

286 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     287 

money  in  job  printing.  What  is  the  answer?  It  can 
be  made  simply  enough.  These  men  were  selling 
something,  the  cost  of  which  they  did  not  know,  for  a 
price  which  they  guessed  to  be  correct.  The  guess 
proved  to  be  wrong.  These  editors  had  no  scientific 
basis  for  computing  the  cost  of  a  finished  article.  They 
based  the  cost  in  rnost  cases  on  the  cost  of  similar  work 
which  they  had  done  in  the  shop  before.  Naturally 
this  was  fatal.  It  would  be  inviting  bankruptcy  for 
the  shoe  dealer  to  sell  a  good,  high-grade  shoe  for 
$3.50;  yet  he  could  have  done  it  fifteen  years  ago.  The 
merchant  cannot  sell  sugar  at  five  cents  a  pound,  even 
though  there  was  a  time  when  that  price  would  have 
yielded  a  sufficient  and  satisfactory  profit.  The  printer 
cannot  now  do  a  letter-head  job  for  $2.50  just  because 
that  was  the  price  he  established  when  he  wanted  to 
get  enough  money  ahead  to  go  to  the  World's  Fair  in 
Chicago  in  1893.  Precedent  is  a  good  thing  in  many 
ways ;  but  it  is  not  a  good  basis  upon  which  to  compute 
costs. 

Printer-Publisher  a  Manufacturer. — The  country 
editor  often  seems  to  forget  that  he  is  a  manufacturer. 
He  is  buying  raw  material  and  labor  and  is  converting 
them  into  a  finished  product.  He  has  three  commodi- 
ties to  sell:  Subscriptions,  advertising  space,  and  job 
printing.  The  newspaper  is  as  truly  an  article  of  com- 
merce as  the  letter-heads  and  sale  bills  which  he  prints 
in  the  office.  Hence  the  newspaper  should  be  treated 
just  as  any  other  job  that  comes  into  the  office.  The 
editor  should  know  just  what  the  paper  costs  every 
week,  and  that  cost  should  include  every  item  which 


288  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

could  properly  be  charged  against  the  job — labor,  ma- 
terials (direct  and  indirect),  proper  percentage  of  de- 
partmental cost  and  of  general  overhead,  proper  per- 
centage of  the  editor's  salary,  and  the  profit  deter- 
mined upon  as  legitimate. 

The  editor  cannot  afiford  to  forget  that  he  is  a  busi- 
ness man.  The  other  business  men  of  the  town  have 
prospered  because  they  knew  what  their  goods  cost 
them,  and  because  their  selling  price  included  the  profit 
they  have  agreed  upon  as  legitimate.  These  men  gen- 
erally know  what  their  cost  is.  When  sugar  costs 
them  more,  they  charge  more  for  it;  if  shoes  are  sell- 
ing at  advanced  factory  prices,  they  figure  their  selling 
price  from  the  new  cost  and  not  from  what  they  paid 
for  the  same  article  a  year  ago.  Because  of  their 
knowledge  of  these  matters,  their  selling  prices  are 
practically  uniform.  Sugar  costs  the  same  at  all  the 
grocery  stores  in  town.  Shoes  of  equal  grade  sell  for 
the  same  prices  at  the  various  shoe  stores.  Yet  the 
printer  often  continues  to  sell  his  products  for  the 
prices  which  prevailed  perhaps  ten  or  fifteen  years  be- 
fore. Probably  these  prices  represented  a  proper  profit 
when  they  were  established.  But  the  printer  should 
know  just  what  his  product  is  costing  him  now  and 
make  his  charge  accordingly. 

Need  of  a  Cost  System. — A  reliable,  simple  sys- 
tem of  cost  finding  is  the  only  thing  which  will  give  to 
the  printer  this  desired  information.  Without  it. he 
can  only  guess,  and  guesses  are  almost  invariably  too 
low.  There  will  always  be  items  which  will  escape 
his  notice;  there  are  always  items  the  presence  of 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     289 

which  he  does  not  guess  and  the  significance  of  which 
might  be  lost  to  him  even  if  he  were  aware  of  their 
presence.  Cutting  rates  is  a  ruinous  practice  which 
never  brings  profitable  business.  Even  in  counties 
where  the  cost-finding  system  is  not  in  use,  this  evil 
has  been  attacked  by  the  county  organization.  Scales 
of  prices  have  been  fixed  and  more  or  less  faithfully 
adhered  to  by  the  printers  who  belong  to  the  associa- 
tion. This  minimizes  the  evil  of  underbidding,  but  it  is 
only  a  makeshift  after  all,  for  prices  are  set  on  a  guess. 

Again,  even  if  prices  as  set  originally  represent  a 
fair  profit,  they  may  soon  become  too  low.  The  fluc- 
tuation of  the  cost  of  raw  material  has  been  so  sudden 
and  so  extreme  in  the  past  few  years  that  such  a 
schedule  might  easily  become  obsolete  in  the  course  of 
a  few  weeks'  time.  County  organizations  cannot  con- 
stantly be  meeting  to  revise  price  schedules.  As  a 
result,  the  men  do  the  work  too  cheaply  or  else  raise 
the  price  and  are  underbid  by  those  who  have  not  ad- 
vanced from  the  old  schedule  to  a  scale  of  prices  which 
will  show  a  proper  profit.  The  only  completely  satis- 
factory system  is  one  which  is  based  on  a  thorough  and 
absolute  knowledge  of  the  real  costs.  If  every  office 
manager  has  such  knowledge,  underbidding  will  prac- 
tically be  eliminated  and  there  will  be  no  necessity  of 
taking  county-wide  action  every  time  paper  or  other 
material  goes  up  in  price. 

Do  You  Know? — E.  M.  Spencer,  secretary  and 
treasurer  of  the  Minneapolis  Ben  Franklin  club,  asked 
the  following  pertinent  questions  at  a  meeting  of  the 
North  Dakota  Press  association  at  Grand  Forks : 


290  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Is  your  net  profit  what  it  should  be  on  the  volume  of 
business  you  are  doing? 

Do  you  know  what  the  total  cost  of  operating  your 
business  is  for  a  month  or  a  year? 

Do  you  know  what  your  fixed  expenses  are  for  a 
month  or  a  year,  whether  the  plant  is  busy  or  quiet  ? 

Can  you  tell  what  it  costs  to  operate  each  division  of 
your  plant  a  month  or  a  year? 

Do  you  know  how  many  productive  units  or  hours  of 
each  class  of  product  you  sell  in  a  month  or  a  year? 

Do  you  know  what  each  operation  costs  you  in  the  dif- 
ferent departments  of  your  plant  per  unit,  or  hour? 

Do  you  know  the  proportion  of  productive  or  nonpro- 
ductive time  in  your  different  departments? 

Do  you  make  a  sure  first  profit  on  stock  by  discount- 
ing your  bills? 

Do  you  have  any  difficulty  in  meeting  your  pay  roll  ? 

Do  you  pay  yourself  as  much  salary  as  you  would  have 
to  pay  another  to  take  your  place? 

Do  you  charge  depreciation  into  the  cost  of  your 
product,  in  order  to  replace  your  equipment  when  it  is 
worn  out  or  obsolete? 

Do  you  pay  yourself  interest  on  your  investment,  just 
as  you  would  pay  someone  else  if  you  were  running  on 
borrowed  money? 

Do  you  include  interest  on  the  money  required  to  op- 
erate the  business  as  well  as  on  the  investment  in  plant? 

Do  you  make  a  proper  charge  to  cover  deductions  and 
discounts  to  customers  as  well  as  bad  accounts  or  losses? 

Do  you  know  how  much  you  make  each  month  on  the 
profitable  business  you  bill  out? 

Do  you  know  how  much  you  lose  on  the  unprofitable 
business  done  each  month  ? 

Are  you  reducing  the  amount  of  business  billed  out  at 
a  loss  each  month,  or  is  it  increasing? 

If  your,  building  burned  tonight,  have  you  a  record 
which  shows  the  amount  you  had  invested  in  labor  and 
stock  in  the  work  in  process  to  date  ? 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     291 

The  Cost  System  Will  Tell  You.— The  only  way 
that  a  printer  can  get  the  correct  answer  to  all  these 
vital  questions  is  through  the  cost-finding  system.  Un- 
less he  knows  these  things  and  has  a  record  of  them, 
his  business  is  not  being  conducted  along  the  best  busi- 
ness lines.  The  conclusion  obviously  is  that  every 
printer-publisher  should  install  some  sort  of  system 
which  will  tell  him  the  answers  to  these  questions. 

Objections  Offered. — Practically  every  printer 
would  be  glad  to  know  all  these  things,  and  to  have  a 
complete  and  accurate  record  of  all  business  done  in  the 
shop.  If  he  is  candid,  he  will  usually  admit  that  he 
does  not  know  precisely  about  these  things,  and  that  he 
would  like  to  be  able  to  have  all  the  details  of  his  busi- 
ness at  his  finger  tips  in  such  a  way  as  would  promote 
prosperity.  But  the  innovation  wins  its  way  slowly. 
Objections  are  offered  on  every  hand;  and  these  objec- 
tions show  that  the  average  printer  has  a  vague  idea 
of  the  workings  of  the  system.  The  printer  who  does 
not  believe  in  the  efficiency  of  a  cost-finding  system 
ordinarily  offers  one  or  more  of  the  following  objec- 
tions : 

(i)  That  he  knows  his  costs  without  the  system; 
(2)  that  it  costs  too  much  to  install  the  system;  (3) 
that  it  cannot  be  worked  to  advantage  in  a  one-man 
shop;  and  (4)  that  the  system  is  so  complicated  that  it 
is  an  added  burden  to  the  already  too  busy  editor. 
These  objections  are  made  honestly  and  must  be  met 
v/ith  facts  before  the  country  printer-publisher  will 
venture  to  have  the  system  installed  in  his  office. 

(i)  ''I  know  my  costs!''    The  average  country  pub- 


292  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

lisher  is  eager  to  make  his  business  as  profitable  as  pos- 
sible, and  yet  many  of  them  believe  that  there  is  noth- 
ing to  be  gained  from  the  installation  of  a  cost-finding 
system  in  their  offices.  There  are  three  elements  which 
enter  into  the  cost  of  every  finished  product:  i.  ma- 
terial, 2.  labor,  and  3.  general  expense,  usually  called 
overhead.  The  first  one,  material,  the  country  pub- 
lisher can  estimate  fairly  well,  for  he  has  the  in- 
voices of  the  goods  which  entered  into  the  product  and 
can  tell  just  about  what  he  ought  to  charge  for  this 
item  of  the  total  cost  of  the  job. 

The  second  element  of  cost,  that  of  labor,  is  likely 
to  be  something  of  a  guess,  for  the  average  printer 
does  not  know  and  cannot  find  out  without  a  cost-find- 
ing system  what  the  labor  on  a  given  job  is  worth.  As 
an  example  of  this  a  certain  printer,  who  derided  the 
possibility  of  the  cost-finding  system  showing  him  any- 
thing he  did  not  already  know,  sent  to  the  secretary 
of  the  state  Ben  Franklin  club  an  estimate  of  a  job 
which  he  had  just  finished  in  his  office.  It  was  a  letter- 
head job;  a  simple  job  to  estimate.  He  charged  off 
fifty  cents  an  hour  for  hand  composition  and  a  like 
sum  for  make-ready  and  press  run.  To  overhead  he 
charged  off  71  cents  for  a  job  which  took  about  three 
hours  to  do.  He  made  his  estimate  and  showed  that 
he  had  made  a  profit  of  $2.47.  He  was  apparently 
satisfied  that  he  had  made  money  on  the  job. 

Now  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  the  amount  he  charged 
off  for  material  was  correct ;  it  could  easily  be  figured 
from  his  invoices.  But  the  other  items  were  undoubt- 
edly too  low.    The  annual  composite  statement  of  hour 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     293 

costs  issued  by  the  United  Typothetse  and  Franklin 
Clubs  of  America  for  191 5  show  the  average  cost  for 
hand  composition  to  be  $1.53  an  hour,  and  for  platen 
presses  the  hour  cost  was  88  cents.  Of  course,  in  a 
small  shop  where  there  is  only  one  press  and  no  other 
investment  in  the  job  press  department,  and  where  that 
one  press  is  kept  busy  all  the  time,  the  hour  cost  will 
probably  be  as  low  as  50  cents.  But  not  in  the  office 
mentioned  above,  where  the  job  press  was  not  used  to 
more  than  one-tenth  of  its  capacity.  Also,  the  "over- 
head'' of  a  job  like  that  for  three  hours  is  bound  to  be 
more  than  71  cents.  The  average  overhead  for  hand 
composition  in  a  shop  of  this  sort  is  at  least  30  cents 
an  hour;  and  for  job  press  about  70  cents.  Thus  a  job 
which  took  20  minutes  in  the  composing  room  and  2 
hours  and  40  minutes  in  the  press  room  ought  to  be 
charged  in  the  neighborhood  of  $1.95  for  overhead. 
It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  too,  that  in  this  printer's 
so-called  ^'overhead''  there  was  no  provision  made  for 
salary  to  the  editor-publisher.  Assuming  that  the 
charge  for  material  was  correct,  the  printer  in  ques- 
tion did  the  job  for  just  about  cost. 

This  incident  is  given  at  some  length  because  it  is 
typical  of  the  man  who  thinks  that  he  does  not  need  a 
system  of  cost  finding  because  he  knows  what  his  costs 
are.  This  shows  that  the  average  printer  does  not 
know  his  costs.  He  may  guess  fairly  well  at  the  labor 
cost,  though  it  will  be  at  best  but  a  guess ;  but  there  is 
not  one  man  in  a  thousand  who  knows  anything  about 
general  expense  or  overhead  unless  he  has  carefully 
worked  it  out  as  he  would  do  with  the  cost  system.    He 


294  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

knows  that  some  way  he  has  to  get  money  together  to 
pay  the  rent,  heat,  Hght,  etc.  But  of  how  this  amount 
should  be  allocated  among  the  various  departments  he 
is  wholly  ignorant. 

The  following  figures  will  show  how  far  a  guess  is 
likely  to  miss  the  truth.  This  monthly  summary  was 
compiled  for  a  $2,000  printing  plant  by  the  United 
Typothetse  and  Franklin  Clubs  of  America  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Standard  Cost-Finding  System. 

#  Proprietor's  salary $80.00 

Rent  for  month 20.00 

Pay  roll  for  month , 60.00 

Heat  and  fuel  33-75 

Light  1.50 

Power 4.50 

Taxes  1 .00 

#  Interest  on  investment  at  6% 10.00 

#  Replacement  at  10%  a  year 16.66 

#  Interest  on  borrowed  money 3.33 

#  Bad    accounts 5.00 

#  Spoiled   work 5.00 

Office  stationery  and  postage 4.00 

#  Advertising   5.00 

Telephone  and  telegraph 5.00 

#  Donations,  charity,   etc 2.00 

#  Organization  dues i.oo 

#  Water,  soap,  and  towels i.oo 

#  Rollers,  gauge  pins,  tympan  paper,  wrapping 

paper,  twine,  paste,  padding,  glue,  etc 1.50 

Repairs    i  .50 

Knife  grinding,  etc .50 

Total  $262.24 

According  to  the  printer's  original  summary,  his 
monthly  expenditures  were  $131.75.     When  it  was 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     295 

checked  up  by  the  cost-finding  method,  it  was  learned 
that  all  items  above  marked  "#"  had  been  omitted. 
Yet  this  man,  too,  thought  he  knew  his  costs,  though 
he  had  made  an  error  of  over  $130  in  one  month's 
costs  on  a  $2,000  plant. 

(2)  "Cost  of  installation*' :  The  item  of  installation 
cost  is  a  practical  one  that  must  be  settled  at  once. 
The  average  country  printer  who  has  been  slipping 
along  ''guesstimating''  the  proper  price  to  charge  for 
his  work,  is  not  always  in  a  position  to  pay  out  a  great 
deal  of  money  to  have  any  system,  however  helpful, 
installed  in  his  office.  There  are  many  individual  ''cost 
experts"  selling  cost-finding  systems  to  printers  and 
publishers.  These  men  charge  from  $50  to  $300  and 
even  as  high  as  $500  for  their  services.  In  other 
words,  they  charge  all  the  traffic  will  bear.  They  oper- 
ate chiefly  among  the  printers  of  the  smaller  cities  and 
large  towns  where  there  is  likely  to  be  a  fair  degree 
of  prosperity  among  printers.  It  is  not  the  purpose 
of  the  present  writer  to  say  that  these  systems  are  no 
good;  many  of  them  are  giving  satisfaction  in  the 
plants  where  they  are  in  operation.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  charge  for  the  service  is  far  too  high. 
The  Standard  System  of  Cost  Finding  which  has  been 
approved  by  the  United  Typothetse  and  Franklin 
Clubs  of  America,  and  which  has  been  officially  in- 
dorsed by  the  Federal  Trade  Commission,  is  one  which 
is  applicable  to  any  print  shop  or  any  publishing  plant 
no  matter  how  small.  There  is  none  better  for  this 
kind  of  work,  for  this  system  was  arranged  with  the 


296  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

specific  problems  of  printers  and  publishers  in  mind. 
It  can  be  obtained  at  a  small  cost. 

(3)  'The  system  cannot  be  worked  in  a  one-man 
shop'' :  This  objection  is  based  upon  a  misapprehen- 
sion of  the  function  of  the  system.  The  printer-pub- 
lisher who  is  carrying  on  his  business  with  the  assis- 
tance of  one  girl  or  boy  often  thinks  that  he  cannot 
make  use  of  such  a  system.  He  himself  does  all  the 
various  kinds  of  work  which  are  done  in  the  office;  he 
does  hand  composition,  press  work,  make-ready, 
lockup,  distribution,  and  attends  to  the  affairs  of  the 
front  office  as  well.  He  feels  that  he  does  not  need  to 
''keep  tab"  on  himself.  But  in  order  to  know  the  exact 
distribution  of  cost  elements,  it  is  as  necessary  to  know 
the  details  of  labor,  material,  and  "overhead''  for  a 
one-man  shop  as  for  a  plant  where  fifty  men  are  em- 
ployed. 

The  cost-finding  system  is  working  satisfactorily 
today  in  many  just  such  offices  as  this.  It  is  almost 
always  an  eye-opener  to  the  proprietor  of  such  an  es- 
tablishment. He  finds  what  his  paper  costs  him  per 
issue,  per  month,  and  per  year.  He  knows  what  each 
job  costs ;  he  learns  the  average  cost  of  the  sold  hour  in 
each  department;  he  finds  the  ratio  of  nonproductive 
hours  to  productive  hours ;  he  takes  his  salary  out  be- 
fore he  figures  profits ;  he  allows  for  depreciation  and 
obsolescence;  he  allows  for  taxes  and  interest  on  in- 
vestment. In  other  words,  he  finds  that  he  is  running 
his  business  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  on  a  strictly 
business  basis:  The  cost  system  emphatically  does  pay 
in  a  small  shop,  as  will  graphically  be  shown  later  by 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     297 

the  use  of  filled-in  forms  from  actual  businesses  of 
this  sort. 

(4)  'The  system  is  too  complicated" :  This  objec- 
tion can  easily  be  controverted  by  an  examination  of 
the  blank  forms.  The  system  is  not  complicated.  It 
simply  requires  attention  at  first  until  the  entries  of 
time  and  operation  become  second  nature.  In  the 
average  country  office  the  entries  can  be  made  in  a 
half -hour  each  day,  and  in  many  small  offices  through- 
out the  country  no  more  than  fifteen  minutes  daily  are 
required.  If  the  office  has  a  bookkeeper,  she  can  do 
the  work  easily  from  the  time  tickets  and  job  tickets 
which  are  brought  in  from  the  back  office. 

Definition  of  a  Cost-Finding  System.— A  cost 
system  such  as  the  one  mentioned  above  is  a  set  of 
''records  designed  to  show  the  cost  of  operation  in  each 
department,  or  of  each  operation  or  machine  employed 
in  the  production  of  goods  that  are  sold.''  When  the 
printer  has  this  knowledge,  he  can  estimate  the  cost  of 
raw  material  and  then  can  easily  and  scientifically  com- 
pute the  cost  of  any  job  he  may  be  asked  to  bid  upon. 
He  has  at  his  finger  tips  the  accurate  history  of  past 
experience  to  guide  him  in  estimating  on  possible  jobs. 
"A  cost  system  is  a  thermometer  of  trade.'' 

The  cost  system  is  also  a  detective  which  is  on  the 
lookout  for  inefficiency,  both  among  the  men  and  in 
the  equipment.  If  a  certain  number  of  men  are  not 
doing  the  required  amount  of  work,  the  cost  system 
will  quickly  point  out  the  lazy  or  inefficient  workman. 
If  there  are  too  many  men  in  the  plant  for  the  amount 
of  work  there  is  to  do,  the  cost  system  will  reveal  it. 


298  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

One  printer-publisher  in  Wisconsin  had  a  force  of  four 
men  aside  from  himself.  After  the  installation  of  the 
Standard  Cost-Finding  System  he  was  able  to  let  two 
of  these  men  go  and  still  get  as  much  work  done  as 
before.  In  this  exceptional  case  there  was  no  laziness 
or  ''soldiering"  to  be  ferreted  out.  It  was  simply  a 
case  of  inefficient  methods,  waits,  too  many  men  on 
the  job,  and  poor  routing  of  work,  which  were  eating 
the  profits  of  the  business. 

Another  case  in  point  which  shows  the  use  of  the 
cost-finding  system  as  a  business  detective :  A  certain 
printer  was  not  sure  that  he  could  afiford  to  have  the 
cost-finding  system  installed  because  of  the  fact  that 
he  was  contemplating  the  purchase  of  a  new  job  press. 
The  cost  expert  advised  him  to  have  the  system  in- 
stalled and  wait  to  see  whether  he  really  needed  a  new 
press.  The  old  press  was  in  good  running  condition 
and  it  was  only  a  question  of  increasing  the  equip- 
ment. The  printer  finally  had  the  system  installed. 
At  the  end  of  the  first  month  the  record  showed  that 
the  job  press  had  been  operated  just  67.4  hours  during 
the  entire  month,  or  about  2^  hours  a  day.  The 
printer  was  convinced  that  he  did  not  need  another 
press.  If  he  had  bought  the  new  press,  there  would 
have  been  practically  double  the  investment  in  that  de- 
partment, the  ''overhead'^  would  have  been  greatly  in- 
creased, and  the  price  of  work  made  too  high.  Cost 
finding  in  this  case,  as  it  often  does,  operated  to  bring 
about  efficiency  and  prevent  increase  in  prices.  The 
purpose  of  The  system  is  not  primarily  to  get  higher 
prices  for  the  printer's  product,  but  to  get  fair  prices. 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     299 

If  a  shop  charges  too  much  for  a  certain  kind  of  work, 
the  cost-finding  system  will  bring  the  price  down  to 
where  it  belongs;  if  it  is  charging  too  little,  which  is 
more  likely  to  be  the  case,  an  accurate  knowledge  of 
costs  will  indicate  what  charge  will  give  a  margin  of 
profit  for  the  shop. 

The  Purpose  of  the  Cost-Finding  System. — As 
the  name  indicates,  the  purpose  of  the  system  is  to  find 
the  real  cost  of  production  of  a  given  piece  of  work. 
To  this  can  be  added  the  percentage  of  profit  deter- 
mined upon  as  being  legitimate.  This  sum  will  repre- 
sent the  amount  which  ought  to  be  charged  for  the 
piece  of  work.  The  whole  trouble  with  a  guess-work 
system  is  that  the  printer  does  not  know  what  should 
properly  enter  into  the  cost  of  a  given  job.  He  knows 
about  what  the  stock  will  cost,  and  he  thinks  that  he 
knows  about  what  his  labor  will  be  worth  on  the  job, 
and  then  he  adds  a  little  for  his  profit.  This  he  calls 
the  selling  price  of  the  job  and  takes  the  money  with- 
out stopping  to  consider  that  there  are  dozens  of  things, 
which  he  will  have  to  pay  out  of  the  ''profits"  of  the 
job,  which  are  not  represented  in  the  selling  price. 

Elements  of  Cost. — The  following  outline  of  all 
the  elements  entering  into  the  cost  of  a  job  is  taken 
from  ''Bookkeeping  and  Cost  Finding  for  Printers,'' 
by  F.  H.  Elwell.i 

I.    Cost  of  Materials 

a.  Invoices  (original  cost  of  materials) 

b.  Freight 

c.  Cartage 

d.  Handling 

*  Published  by  The  University  of  Wisconsin. 


300  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

2.    Cost  of  Production 

a.  Direct  labor 

( 1 )  Composing  room 

(2)  Press  room 

(3)  Bindery 

(4)  Other  departments,  if  any 

b.  General  expense 

(i)  Direct  departmental  expense 
Rent 
Heat 
Light 
Power 
Repairs 
Depreciation     and     obsolescence     of 

equipment 
Taxes 
Insurance 

Indirect  material  or  shop  supplies 
Supervision  and  other  indirect  labor 
Interest  on  investment 

(2)   Overhead 

(a)  Shop  expenditures 

All  the  expenditures  for  the  sev- 
eral departments  not  directly 
chargeable  to  any  given  de- 
partment. 

(b)  Selling  expenditures 

Salesmen's  salaries 
Salesmen's  commissions 
Salesmen's  expenses 
Discount  on  sales 
Advertising 

General   shipping   and   delivery 
expenses 

(c)  Administrative  expenditures 

General  office  salaries 
^  Officers'  salaries 

Postage 
Ppnations 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    301 

Telegrams  and  telephone 
Club  and  organization  dues 
Trade  journal  subscriptions 
Interest  on  investment 
Depreciation    and    obsolescence 

of  office  equipment 
Sundry  office  expense 

It  is  perfectly  obvious  that  the  average  printer  figur- 
ing the,  cost  of  a  job  v^ill  not  think  of  all  these  items 
which  wall  have  to  be  paid  some  v^ay  out  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  business.  The  chances  are  that  he  v^ill 
make  his  charge  and  then  v^onder  v^hen  the  bills  begin 
to  come  in  v^here  he  is  going  to  get  the  money  to  meet 
all  the  demands  v^hich  are  made  upon  him.  The  only 
profits  that  amount  to  anything  in  building  a  bank  ac- 
count are  net  profits — the  amount  left  after  interest, 
taxes,  depreciation,  salary,  insurance,  donations,  etc., 
have  all  been  paid.  Gross  profits  w^hich  will  be  con- 
sumed by  payments  on  the  above  items  mean  nothing 
at  all  from  the  successful  business  man's  point  of  view. 

The  cost  system  gathers  the  information  the  printer 
should  have  and  presents  it  in  such  shape  that  there 
can  be  no  chance  of  making  errors  if  one  exercises 
ordinary  care.  A  glance  at  the  records  will  show  ( i ) 
the  original  cost  of  the  material;  (2)  the  final  cost  of 
the  material  with  freight,  cartage,  and  ten  per  cent 
added  to  cover  the  cost  of  handling;  (3)  the  amount 
of  direct  and  indirect  labor  required  on  a  certain  job; 
(4)  the  amount  of  general  expense  allocated  to  the 
several  departments;  (5)  the  distribution  of  the  direct 
departmental  expense;  (6)  a  complete  and  detailed 
record  of  every  job  which  passes  through  the  office; 


302  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

and  (7)  a  summary  which  will  show  the  cost  of  each 
department,  and  a  grouping  of  these  records  so  as  to 
show  the  cost  of  operating  the  plant  for  a  productive 
hour. 

How  THE  Cost-Finding  System  Works 

Fundamental  Principles. — It  is  plain  that  there 
must  be  a  set  of  principles  laid  down  which  will  apply 
equally  well  to  all  shops  large  and  small  before  there 
can  be  anything  that  could  be  called  a  '^standard"  sys- 
tem of  cost  finding.  The  following  principles  have 
been  officially  adopted  by  the  several  International  Cost 
Congresses  and  by  the  United  Typothetse  and  Frank- 
lin Clubs  of  America  in  convention  at  New  Orleans, 
October,  19 13. 

1.  For  the  purpose  of  arriving  at  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion of  printing,  we  recommend  that  the  standard  unit 
of  product  shall  be  the  sold  hour  in  the  several  de- 
partments. 

2.  That  the  standard  hour  cost  shall  be  the  gross 
cost ;  namely,  labor,  plus  all  overhead  expense,  depart- 
ment and  office. 

3.  That  the  standard  method  of  caring  for  the  over- 
head expense  shall  be  to  charge  direct,  to  each  depart- 
ment all  necessary  items,  and  to  distribute  office  or 
general  overhead  expense  on  the  basis  of  total  depart- 
ment costs,  including  pay  roll. 

4.  That  stock-handling,  storage,  and  shipping,  as 
well  as  sales,  shall,  where  possible,  be  kept  as  separate 
departments,  or  may  be  included  as  items  of  the  gen- 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     303 

eral  overhead,  to  the  end  that  the  same  be  included  in 
the  gross  cost  of  mechanical  department. 

5.  To  cover  cost  of  handling  stock,  we  suggest  that 
a  minimum  of  10  per  cent  be  added  to  the  delivered 
price  at  the  plant.    Profit  to  be  added  to  this  amount. 

6.  That  the  standard  rate  of  depreciation  on  stand- 
ard machines  to  be  charged  to  the  cost  of  production 
shall  be  10  per  cent  annually  of  original  purchase  price. 

7.  That  the  standard  rate  of  depreciation  on  type 
to  be  charged  to  cost  of  production  shall  be  25  per  cent 
per  annum  of  its  original  cost. 

8.  That  the  standard  rate  of  depreciation  on  stands, 
chases,  imposing  stones,  etc.,  to  be  charged  to  cost  of 
production  shall  be  10  per  cent  per  annum  of  their 
original  cost.  , 

9.  That  interest  on  investment  (paid-in  capital  and 
surplus),  at  the  rate  of  6  per  cent  or  the  legal  rate  of 
interest,  is  a  proper  charge  to  the  cost  of  production. 

10.  That  the  standard  rate  to  be  charged  off  for  bad 
debts  shall  be  i  per  cent  of  the  volume  of  yearly  sales. 

11.  That  in  the  operation  of  a  printing  plant  to  its 
average  capacity,  a  minimum  profit  of  25  per  cent 
should  be  added  to  the  cost  of  production. 

12.  That  the  standard  terms  of  sale  of  the  printer's 
product  shall  be  thirty  days  net,  due  on  the  tenth  of  the 
month  following  date  of  purchase. 

13.  That  for  the  purpose  of  arriving  at  the  cost  of 
monotype  composition,  the  keyboard  and  the  caster  be 
kept  as  separate  departments. 

14.  That  chases  in  the  average  commercial  plant  be 
considered  part  of  the  composing  room  equipment. 


304  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

15.  That  where  type  and  material  are  kept  standing 
for  the  convenience  of  the  customer,  a  proper  charge 
should  be  made. 

16.  That  in  presswork,  ink  should  be  charged  as  a 
special  item,  and  not  included  in  the  cost  per  hour  of 
press  work. 

17.  As  a  requisite  for  determining  costs,  we  indorse 
and  deem  necessary  the  use  of  an  efficient  loose-leaf 
inventory. 

How  to  Begin. — The  first  step  after  one  gets  the 
blanks  of  the  Standard  Cost  Finding  System  is  to 
make  a  careful  inventory  of  the  department  equipment. 
Each  department  should  be  charged  with  the  amount 
of  money  represented  in  the  equipment.  Also,  meas- 
urements should  be  made  in  order  to  determine  the 
amount  of  floor  space  occupied  by  each  department, 
for  from  this  percentage  is  determined  the  per  cent  of 
heat  and  rent  expense  that  shall  be  charged  to  each 
department.  As  shown  in  Form  10  (Exhibit  14,  p. 
328),  the  following  items  are  listed  under  the  depart- 
ments to  which  they  belong:  depreciation,  interest  on 
investment,  insurance,  taxes,  advertising,  donations, 
association  dues,  subscriptions  to  trade  journals,  bad 
debts,  office  stationery  and  shop  forms,  insurance  (ac- 
cident), rollers,  rent,  light,  heat,  and  telephone.  Since 
these  figures  will  generally  remain  unchanged  for  the 
year,  the  amount  shown  in  the  monthly  summary  of 
departmental  hour  costs  represents  one-twelfth  of  the 
annual  sum.  When  this  apportionment  is  done,  it  is 
time  to  begin  fhe  actual  work  of  determining  costs. 

The  Job  Ticket.— The  first  job  that  comes  into  the 


Date- 
Salesman.. 


JOBUCKET 


Job  No...... 

Promised- 


For_ 


Address™ 


Quantity  and  Descriptioa... 


e-       Trimmed 
Size       Flat 


in.  wide  . 


in.  high  . 


COMPOSITION 


When... 


Proof  to — 

ci     Short    ,,,               Fac -simile            Nice  Job       d~^.t..~«  o^;^*       ^^nd 

S?t    Long    Way      Similar  to  Copy      Cheap  Job     Body  Type Point    Machine 


Display  Type- 
Remarks  


Light 
Heavy 


Plarn 
Fancy 


No.  on  Press Start  with  No.. 


.._  Score  on  Pres*. Perforate  on  Press... 

STOCK    


Kind  of  Stock.„ 


Size,  Weight  and  Color _ 

Cut x._ jn.   After  Perforating... 

Body  Stock 

Cover  Stock _ „ 


_x....„. in.   After  Printing x in. 

„  Size.  Weight  and  Color. 


.  Size,  Weight  and  Color... 


PRESS  ROOM 


Color  of  Ink  . 

RoHv 

..  Cover - ^ 

Remarks 

Number 

Punch 

,      .Start  with  No._ „ Perforate 

....        „ Loose"Leaf    HoleS 

Score 
Insert _ 

Bind 

Saddle  Side 

Wire  Thread 

SUk  Cord 

Block   „ Pads jn  Pad 

Top    Uft    Right    Bottom 

Fold 

Remarks ^  _ _                                     _.,., „ 

Outside  Work. 

DELIVERY 


Deliver,- 
Ship  by... 


CalL. 


Delivered  by-. 


F,  0.  B.„ 


Exhibit  8. — The  Job  Ticket.     All  necessary  information 
about  the  job  may  be  found  here. 


305 


3o6  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

shop  should  be  listed  on  the  job  ticket,  Form  i  (Ex- 
hibit 8).  It  is  advisable  to  have  this  ticket  printed  on  a 
heavy  manila  envelope  because  of  the  greater  con- 
venience of  handling  copy  and  proof.  Into  this  en- 
velope v^ill  go  all  the  copy,  any  written  instructions 
that  may  be  necessary,  proof  sheets,  and  a  specimen  of 
the  finished  job.  All  instructions  for  composition, 
stock,  pressroom,  bindery,  office,  and  delivery  are  filled 
in  on  the  job  ticket.  If  this  is  carefully  done,  there 
will  be  no  need  for  any  workman  to  ask  questions  or 
lose  valuable  time  looking  for  the  foreman  to  settle  a 
doubt  concerning  some  phase  of  the  job. 

The  job  ticket  accompanies  the  job  through  the  vari- 
ous departments,  and  after  the  work  is  completed,  the 
ticket  may  be  filed  for  future  reference  in  case  of  a 
repeat  order  or  a  similar  job.  Everything  is  complete  : 
copy,  department  instructions,  amount  of  time  neces- 
sary to  do  the  work,  proof  sheets,  and  a  copy  of  the 
completed  job.  These  tickets  should  be  placed  in  filing 
cabinets  as  soon  as  the  job  is  done.  There  are  many 
of  these  cabinets  on  the  market  and  the  printer  can 
procure  the  kind  that  seems  best  fitted  to  his  volume  of 
business.  If  he  wishes,  he  may  even  make  a  case  of 
pine  boxing,  having  it  just  the  right  size  to  hold  the 
ticket,  and  some  30  to  36  inches  long.  These  boxes 
can  be  stacked  in  piles  side  downward  to  permit  easy 
access  to  the  tickets,  and  marked  with  large  labels  in- 
dicating what  job  numbers  are  filed  in  each  box.  On 
the  stub  of  the  Tracer  Book  (Exhibit  9)  is  a  record 
of  every  job  number  that  has  gone  through  the  office. 
Any  question  that  arises  concerning  some  old  job  can 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     307 

at  once  be  answered  by  referring  to  the  tracer  stub 
and  finding  the  job  number;  with  the  job  number 
known,  it  is  a  simple  matter  to  find  the  original  job 
ticket  in  the  files. 

The  Job  Tracer.— As  soon  as  the  job  ticket  is  filled 
out  and  the  job  started  on  its  way  through  the  plant, 
the  proprietor  or  foreman  should  fill  in  the  headings 
of  the  job  tracer  (Exhibit  9).  The  job  number  at 
the  top  of  the  tracer  is,  of  course,  the  same  as  that 
borne  by  the  job  ticket.  These  job  tracers  are  bound 
into  a  book  with  perforated  leaves  which  are  easily  and 
neatly  detachable.  The  pages  of  the  book  are  con- 
secutively numbered  so  that,  whenever  a  job  comes  into 
the  office,  its  serial  number  is  at  once  determined  by 
the  number  on  the  first  unused  page  of  the  tracer  book. 
The  specifications  for  the  job  can  be  copied  on  the  re- 
verse side  of  the  tracer  for  ready  reference  by  the 
foreman. 

It  will  be  noted  that  this  sheet  in  its  final  form  shows 
the  total  cost  of  the  job  and  the  profit  or  loss  resulting 
from  it.  If  this  form  is  properly  kept,  the  sum  of  the 
profits  shown  over  a  given  period  will  represent  the  net 
profit  of  that  period  accurately.  The  job  tracer  shows 
the  work  done  in  the  composing  room,  pressroom  and 
bindery;  also  the  amount  of  stock  used,  the  charge  for 
ink,  and  items  from  the  cash  book  or  purchase  and  ex- 
pense book  which  are  directly  chargeable  to  the  job  in 
hand.  In  the  labor  columns  there  are  places  for  enter- 
ing the  date,  the  name  of  the  employee,  the  kind  of 
work  (the  various  labor  operations  are  given  distin- 
guishing numbers),  and  the  amount  of  time  spent  on 


Job  Tncw-Fomi  2 

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Exhibit  9. — The  Job  Tracer.  This  form  will  tell  of  the  progress 
made  on  a  given  job.  It  gives  important  information  concerning  ^he 
cost.     It  is  filed  when  .the  job  is  completed. 


308 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     309 

the  work.  At  the  close  of  each  day  these  items  are 
entered  and  the  tracer  shows  a  complete  history  of  the 
job  to  date.  When  the  job  is  finished,  the  tracer  sheet 
is  detached  from  the  stub  and  filed  away,  usually  in  the 
job  ticket.  Only  the  jobs  which  are  actually  in  the 
shop  are  contained  in  the  tracer  book. 

Chargeable  and  Nonchargeable  Time. — Before 
going  farther  with  a  detailed  account  of  the  other  cost- 
finding  blanks,  it  will  be  necessary  to  explain  the  terms, 
''productive''  and  "nonproductive''  labor.  Productive 
labor,  that  which  enters  directly  into  the  cost  of  a  job, 
may  be  charged  directly  to  it,  and  is  called  productive 
or  chargeable  time.  Such  labor  as  type-setting, 
make-up,  or  press  run  is  directly  chargeable.  But  there 
are  always  things  to  be  done  in  every  job  which  take 
time  and  cost  money  but  which  are  not  directly  charge- 
able to  the  job  in  hand,  or  to  any  other  job.  Since  all 
this  work  has  to  be  paid  for,  it  is  obvious  that  the  ex- 
pense has  to  be  met  in  some  way.  It  must  come  out  of 
the  gross  profits  of  the  business  and  hence  must  come 
out  of  every  job  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  non- 
productive time  consumed  on  that  particular  job.  We 
have  seen  that  the  net  profits  of  a  job  are  to  be  added 
after  all  expense  has  been  met;  hence,  it  is  clear  that 
the  indirect  labor  charge,  such  as  distribution,  for  ex- 
ample, must  be  paid  from  the  cost  of  the  finished  job 
before  the  addition  of  net  profits.  This  labor  is  neces- 
sary for  the  continuance  of  business,  but  it  cannot  be 
charged  to  any  one  job.  Hence  the  total  cost  of  all  in- 
direct labor  must  be  noted  and  distributed  over  the 
whole  amount  of  expense  according  to  departments. 


310  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

The  following  list  classifies  the  chargeable  (produc- 
tive) operation  and  the  nonchargeable  (nonproduc- 
tive) operations  as  approved  by  the  American  Print- 
er's Cost  Commission.  Many  of  these  will  not  apply 
to  the  ordinary  country  shop,  but  they  are  given  in  full 
for  hand  composition,  machine  composition,  and  bind- 
ery. 

HAND  COMPOSITION 

Chargeable 

1.  Hand  composition. 

2.  Hand  ad  composition. 

3.  Customer's  alterations — hand. 

4.  Make-up.  ' 

5.  Press  lockup. 

6.  Foundry  lockup. 

7.  Registering  forms. 

8.  Dividing  for  colors. 

9.  Inserting  linotype  customer's  alterations. 

10.  Collating  or  assembling  linotype  material. 

11.  Collating  or  assembling  monotype  material. 

12.  Cutting  linotype  slugs. 

13.  Cutting  special  material  for  specific  jobs — explain  in 

remarks. 

14.  Arranging  in  alphabetical  order. 

15.  Preparing  index. 

16.  Arranging  copy  and  cuts. 

17.  Special  proof  for  customers. 

18.  Mounting  cuts. 

19.  Trimming  and  squaring  cuts. 

20.  Caring  for  live  matter. 

21.  Packing  and  boxing  customer's  cuts. 

22 

23 i 

24 • 

25 

26 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     311 


Chargeable  or  Nonchargeable  Time 

2.J.  Making  changes  or  corrections  on  press — explain  in 
remarks. 

28.  Inserting  linotype  office  corrections. 

29.  Editing  copy — and  preparing  copy. 

30.  Checking  ads. 

31.  Miscellaneous — explain. 

32 

33«   •' 

34 

35 

36 


Nonchargeable  Time 

2i7^  Office  corrections. 

38.  Changing  bad  letters. 

39.  Changing  bad  letters  or  characters  on  press. 

40.  Relocking  forms. 

41.  Hunting  for  sorts — explain  in  remarks. 

42.  Hunting  for  lost  pages,  electros,  cuts  or  other  things. 

State  what  in  remarks. 

43.  Cutting  material  for  general  equipment. 

44.  Distribution. 

45.  Proofreading. 

46.  Holding  copy. 

47.  Revising. 

48.  Proving  galleys. 

49.  Extra  work  caused  by  accident — explain  in  remarks. 

50.  Laying  cases. 

51 

52 

S3 

54 

55 


312  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

MACHINE  COMPOSITION— LINOTYPE 

Chargeable  Time 

loi.  Linotype  composition. 

102.  Linotype  customer's  alterations. 

103.  Linotype  changing  over. 

104.  Linotype  casting  borders  and  other  material. 

105 

106 

107 

NONCHARGEABLE  TiME 

108.  Linotype  office  corrections. 

109.  Linotype  waiting  for  copy, 
no.  Cleaning  space  bands. 

111.  Linotype  caring  for  machine. 

112.  Linotype  smelting. 

113.  Linotype  repairs. 

114.  Linotype  delays  through  accident. 

IIS 

116 

117 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— MONOTYPE 

Chargeable  Time 

150.  Monotype  composition — keyboard. 

151.  Monotype  composition — caster. 

152.  Monotype  changing  over — keyboard. 

153.  Monotype  changing  over — caster. 

154.  Monotype  casting  sorts. 

155.  Monotype  customer's  alterations — keyboard. 

156.  Monotype  customer's  alterations — caster. 

157 ^' 

158 

159 • 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     313 

NONCHARGEABLE  TiME 

160.  Monotype  office  corrections — keyboard. 

161.  Monotype  office  corrections — caster. 

162.  Monotype  waiting  for  copy. 

163.  Monotype  caring  for  keyboard. 

164.  Monotype  caring  for  caster. 

165.  Monotype  repairs — keyboard. 

166.  Monotype  repairs — caster. 

167.  Monotype  delays  through  accident — keyboard. 

168.  Monotype  delays  through  accident— caster. 

169.  Monotype  smelting. 

170.  Monotype  casting  sorts  for  hand  correction. 

171 

172 

173 • 

PRESSROOM 

Chargeable  Time 

201.  Wash-up  account  customer. 

202.  Registering. 

203.  Make- ready. 

204.  Running. 

205.  Press  changes. 

206.  Holding  press — customer's  orders. 

207.  Holding  press  account  customer's  proof. 

208.  Slip-sheeting  and  removing  slip  sheets. 

209.  Pulling  press  proofs. 

210.  Waiting  for  ink  to  dry  on  short  run  work  and  turn. 

211.  Standing   time   account   customer — explain    in   re- 

marks. 

212.  Chargeable  standing  time. 

213.  Bronzing. 

214.  Piling  stock. 

215.  Jogging. 

216.  Changing  rollers. 

217 

218 


314  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 


219. 
220. 
221. 


Chargeable  or  Nonchargeable  Time 

222.  Repairing  plates — holding  press. 

223.  Repairing  plates — not  holding  press. 

224.  Standing  time — faulty  plates. 

225.  Lifting  forms. 

226.  Changes  and  corrections  in  forms. 
22y,  Mixing  ink. 

228 

229.    

230. 

231 

232 

Nonchargeable  Time 

233.  General  wash-up. 

234.  Waiting  for  O.  K. 

235.  Waiting  for  feeder. 

236.  Waiting  for  stock. 

237.  Waiting  for  form. 

238.  Waiting  for  ink. 

239.  Changing  bad  letters. 

240.  Standing  time,  faulty  composition. 

241.  Standing  time,  faulty  imposition. 

242.  Standing  time. 

243.  Standing  time,  laying  plates  wrong. 

244.  Making  up  shortage. 

245.  Cleaning  and  dusting  sheets  after  bronzing. 

246.  Accidental  delays — explain  in  remarks. 

247.  Repairing — general — explain  in  remarks. 

248.  Oiling. 

249.  Repairing  automatic  feeder. 

250.  Repairing  motor. 

251.  Standing  time,  rollers  run  down. 

252 

253 » 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     315 


254. 
255. 
256. 


BINDERY— HAND  WORK 
Chargeable  Time 


301.  l^olding. 

302.  Gathering. 

303.  Inserting. 

304.  Collating. 

305.  Covering. 

306.  Sewing.  V 

307.  Silk  or  thread  stitching. 

308.  Tipping. 

309.  Gumming. 

310.  Pasting. 

311.  Stripping. 

312.  Padding. 

313.  Counting. 

314.  Interleaving. 

315.  Enclosing  in  envelopes. 

316.  Indexing. 

317.  Jogging- 

318.  Stringing. 

319.  Tissuing. 

320.  Caring  for  jobs  in  process. 

321.  Helper  on  cutter. 

322.  Helper  on  stitcher. 

323.  Taking  apart. 

324.  Tying. 

325.  Wrapping. 

326.  Slip-sheeting  and  removing  slip  sheets. 

327.  Mailing  (sacking  and  routing). 

328.  Bronzing. 

329.  Addressing. 

330.  Cutting  cloth. 

331.  Cutting  leather. 

332.  Cutting  boarc}, 


3i6  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

333.  Forwarding. 

334.  Finishing. 

335.  Edging  or  marbling. 

336.  Drawing  off  and  fanning  strings. 

337.  Backing. 

338.  Benching. 

339.  Beveling. 

340.  Canvas  cover  making. 

341.  Casing  in. 

342.  Check  binding. 

343.  Making  cases. 

344.  Paring  leather. 

345.  Patent  back. 

346.  Piling  stock. 

347.  Reenforcing. 

348.  Rounding  books. 

349.  Rounding  cases. 

350.  Sawing. 

351.  Stamping. 

352.  Laying  on  gold. 

353.  Lining-up  and  head-banding. 

354 

355 

356 

357 

358 

Chargeable  or  Nonchargeable  Time 

359.  Cleaning. 

360.  Miscellaneous — explain  in  note. 

361 

362 


Nonchargeable  Time 


363.  Helper  on  folder. 

364.  Helper  Q^n  machine. 

365 

366 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     317 

BINDERY— MACHINE  WORK 
Chargeable  Time 

367.  Folding — setting  machine. 

368.  Folding — running  machine. 

369.  Gathering  machine — setting. 

370.  Gathering  machine — running. 

371.  Perforating — setting  machine. 

372.  Perforating — running  machine. 

373.  Punching — setting  machine. 

374.  Punching — running  machine. 

375.  RuHng — drawing  pattern. 

376.  Ruling— make-ready — setting  pens. 

377.  Ruling — proof  out. 

378.  Ruling — running. 

379.  Cutting. 

380.  Trimming. 

381.  Stitching. 

382.  Sawing. 

383.  Sewing. 

384.  Smashing. 

385.  Stamping. 

386.  Numbering  or  paging. 

387.  Indexing. 

388.  Patent  back. 

389.  Eyeletting. 

390.  Embossing. 

391.  Bundling.  . 

392.  Bronzing. 

393.  Roughing  or  pebbling. 

394.  Round  cornering. 

395 

396 

397 

NONCHARGEABLE  TiME 

398.  Repairs — explain  in  remarks. 

399.  Accidental  delays — explain  in  remarks. 


400. 


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COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     319 

Workman's  Daily  Time  Ticket.— A  large  card 
bearing  the  above  tabulation  of  chargeable  and  non- 
chargeable  time  hangs  in  the  various  departments,  and 
each  kind  of  work  goes  by  its  number  in  the  records. 
This  saves  writing  down  each  time  just  what  the  op- 
eration is.  It  will  be  noticed  in  the  reproduction  of 
the  workman's  daily  time  ticket  (Exhibit  10)  that  the 
day  is  divided  into  units  of  six  minutes  each  in  order 
that  the  decimal  system  of  time-accounting  may  be 
used.  For  example,  if  the  workman  goes  to  work  at  8 
o'clock,  and  works  at  distribution  until  12,  the  space 
from  8  to  12  is  bracketed  and  marked  *'a''  which  means 
that  the  charge  for  that  time  is  made  on  the  first  line  of 
the  form.  The  job  number  is  put  into  its  proper  place 
in  the  first  space  at  the  left,  the  number  of  the  opera- 
tion (in  this  case  44),  the  department  mentioned 
(hand  composition),  and  the  amount  of  time  set  down 
— four  hours.  This  information  goes  into  the  col- 
umns to  the  right  of  the  "For  Whom"  column.  All 
time  is  accounted  for,  even  the  time  spent  out  of  the 
shop  for  meals;  and  in  each  case  the  line  reference  is 
given  so  the  charge  may  be  located  at  once  if  there 
is  occasion  to  refer  to  it. 

At  the  close  of  the  day,  the  operator,  foreman,  or 
someone  from  the  office  takes  the  time  ticket  and  posts 
the  entries  over  to  the  right  side,  classifying  them  ac- 
cording to  productive  and  nonproductive  time.  This 
is  easily  done  since  all  charges  are  numbered  to  indi- 
cate the  operation,  and  the  chart  used  in  the  shop  will 
tell  the  office  worker,  even  if  she  is  unaccustomed  to 
the  work,  whether  the  time  is  chargeable  or  noncharge- 


320  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

able.  The  time-iised  totals  should  accord  with  the 
sum  of  the  totals  of  productive  and  nonproductive 
time. 

For  example,  in  Exhibit  lo,  the  girl  worked  eight 
hours  and  the  time  is  marked  down  at  the  foot  of  the 
time-used  column.  Reference  to  the  columns  to  the 
right  shows  that  she  worked  3.4  chargeable  hours  and 
4.3  nonchargeable  hours  in  the  hand  composition  de- 
partment; also,  that  she  spent  .3  hour  in  chargeable 
work  in  the  cylinder  press  department.  The  total  is 
8  hours.  If,  for  some  reason,  the  proprietor  is  curious 
to  know  just  how  she  divided  her  day,  he  can  quickly 
tell  by  reference  to  the  operation  numbers.  For  ex- 
ample, she  worked  at  distribution,  operation  44,  from 
8  to  12  and  from  i  to  i  :i8.  The  charges  for  this  work 
are  made  on  lines  a  and  c.  At  i  :i8  she  began  to  work 
at  hand  composition  (operation  i)  and  worked  until 
2  :42 ;  this  is  charged  on  line  d.  At  2  42  she  began 
feeding  the  cylinder  press  (operation  204)  and  worked 
at  it  until  3;  this  is  charged  on  line  e.  From  3  to  S 
she  worked  again  at  hand  composition  (operation  i) 
and  the  charge  was  made  on  line  f.  The  job  numbers 
indicate  what  jobs  she  worked  on.  The  distribution 
was  done  on  the  paper  of  the  week  before,  job  29. 
The  composition  was  done  on  the  paper  that  would  be 
issued  the  current  week,  job  30.  The  press  work  was 
done  on  a  piece  of  job  work,  serial  number  74;  refer- 
ence to  the  job  tracer  would  show  just  what  this  job 
was  and  all  the  specifications  and  instructions  concern- 
ing it  whichr  have  been  copied  on  the  reverse  of  the 
tracer  from  the  job  ticket.     Everything  is  there  in  a 


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32:i  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

nutshell,  and  there  is  nothing  difficult  about  following 
the  day's  work. 

Monthly  Summary  of  Daily  Time  Tickets.— At 
the  end  of  the  day,  the  totals  from  the  daily  time  tickets 
are  posted  to  the  monthly  summary  of  workman's  daily 
time  tickets.  It  will  be  noted  that  this  form  (Exhibit 
II )  carries  the  total  hours  worked  each  day  by  each 
workman  in  the  various  departments  of  the  shop,  and 
the  distribution  of  the  time  into  chargeable  and  non- 
chargeable  hours.  The  hours  the  editor  spends  in  the 
front  office  are  charged  to  general  expense  in  the  right- 
hand  column,  and  if  there  are  other  office  workers, 
their  labor  expense  goes  into  an  office  column  or  into 
the  general  overhead.  In  Exhibit  ii  is  graphically 
shown  the  division  of  each  workman's  time.  Take,  for 
example,  the  case  of  the  proprietor  on  the  first  day  of 
the  month :  It  will  be  seen  that  he  worked  8.4  hours 
in  the  hand  composition  department;  7.4  hours  were 
chargeable  and  i  hour  nonchargeable.  He  put  in  1.4 
hours  in  the  hand  bindery  and  5  hours  in  the  front 
office.  The  total  number  of  hours  worked  during  the 
day,  10.3,  appears  in  the  first  column  at  the  right  of 
the  date. 

Labor  Cost  per  Hour. — To  find  the  labor  cost  per 
hour  for  each  workman  is  a  simple  problem  in  di- 
vision. The  whole  amount  of  his  wage  during  the 
month  is  divided  by  the  sum  of  the  total  hours  worked. 
These  figures  appear  at  the  lower  left-hand  corner  of 
the  page.  For  example,  a  reference  to  the  pay  roll 
book  shows  Ihat  the  proprietor  paid  himself  $81  for  his 
services  during  the  month.    The  total  hours  he  worked 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     323 

during  the  month  as  given  in  Exhibit  11  were  234.7. 
The  division  gives  an  hour  labor  cost  of  approximately 
34.5  cents.  To  find  the  labor  cost  of  operating  each 
department,  the  given  hour  cost  of  each  workman  in 
that  department  is  multiplied  by  the  number  of  hours 
he  gave  to  labor,  productive  and  nonproductive,  in  that 
particular  department.  The  sum  of  the  individual 
charges  will  be  the  total  labor  cost  of  the  department. 

Referring  again  to  Exhibit  11  the  cost  of  the  pro- 
prietor's work  in  the  hand  composition  department  is 
given  as  $41.03.  This  sum  is  determined  by  multiply- 
ing the  number  of  hours  spent  in  that  department, 
1 18.9,  by  the  labor  cost  per  hour,  34.5  cents.  The  cost 
of  the  other  departments  is  found  in  a  similar  manner. 

Record  of  Chargeable  and  Nonchargeable 
Hours. — After  the  above  entries  have  been  made,  the 
whole  sum  of  both  chargeable  and  nonchargeable  hours 
of  all  the  workmen  in  the  shop  is  posted  to  the  record 
of  chargeable  and  nonchargeable  hours  (Exhibit  12). 
This  record,  when  completed,  shows  the  number  of 
chargeable  and  nonchargeable  hours  in  each  depart- 
ment for  the  entire  month.  This  form  is  especially 
valuable  since  it  shows  which  equipment  is  earning  its 
way  and  which  is  not.  It  will  show  pretty  conclusively 
whether  there  is  need  for  added  equipment.  A  careful 
study  of  this  record  over  a  number  of  months  will 
help  the  printer  to  a  greater  efficiency  in  the  matter  of 
keeping  equipment  as  busy  as  possible,  thus  cutting 
down  ^'overhead"  charges  on  departments  which  have 
not  been  especially  busy.  This  cannot  be  done,  of 
course,  unless  there  is  a  good  run  of  business  in  the 


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324 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     325 

shop,  but  much  can  be  done  in  the  matter  of  routing 
jobs  so  that  each  department  will  be  operating  to  full 
efficiency  under  existing  conditions. 

Pay  Roll  Book. — This  book  is  for  the  purpose  of 
recording  the  amount  paid  monthly  to  employees,  and 
should  include  the  salary  of  the  editor  or  proprietor. 
A  glance  at  the  form  (Exhibit  13)  will  show  that  the 
spaces  are  so  arranged  as  to  allow  for  five  entries  and 
a  total  between  the  red  lines.  On  the  last  day  of  the 
month  the  pay  roll  for  that  week  is  apportioned  and 
the  proper  amounts  credited  to  each  employee's  labor 
account  in  the  ledger.  When  the  salaries  are  paid,  or 
there  is  payment  made  on  account,  it  is  debited  to  these 
accounts  through  the  cash  book.  The  labor  charge  to 
each  department  is  posted  from  Exhibit  11  and  ap- 
pears in  its  proper  place  in  the  pay  roll  book. 

The  forms  for  cash  book,  sales  book,  and  purchase 
and  expense  book  are  practically  the  same  as  used  in 
any  office  where  there  is  any  attempt  at  all  to  keep 
books  on  all  business  transactions.  These  forms  need 
not  be  reproduced  here,  nor  do  they  seem  to  call  for 
any  detailed  explanation. 

Monthly  Summary  of  Departmental  Hour  Costs. 
— ^This  form  (Exhibit  14)  is  intended  to  group  the  vari- 
ous data  obtained  from  the  other  forms  and  make  the 
information  easily  accessible  to  the  proprietor  at  all 
times.  If  the  work  is  done  accurately,  this  form  will 
supply  a  dependable  statement  of  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion. Data  from  the  inventory  show  the  amount  of 
investment  in  each  department,  the  percentage  of  in- 
vestment, and  the  percentage  of  floor  space.    From  the 


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326 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     327 

amount  of  departmental  investment  are  determined  the 
amounts  to  be  charged  off  to  depreciation,  interest,  in- 
surance, and  taxes.  Advertising,  association  dues,  sub- 
scriptions to  trade  magazines,  bad  debts,  office  sta- 
tionery and  shop  forms  are  assigned  to  the  general 
expense  column.  The  amount  charged  in  each  in- 
stance represents  one-twelfth  of  the  yearly  expense, 
for  this  blank  is  a  monthly  summary.  Insurance  is 
charged  according  to  the  department  hazard;  rollers 
are  charged  to  the  department  concerned  and  in  the 
proper  proportion.  Heat  and  rent  are  charged  to  the 
various  departments  according  to  the  extent  of  floor 
space  occupied.  All  these  totals  in  the  various  depart- 
ments are  added  and  extended  to  the  total-disburse- 
ments column  at  the  extreme  right  of  the  page.  These 
totals  are  practically  constant  and  will  usually  remain 
fixed  for  the  year. 

The  totals  from  the  purchase  and  expense  book, 
such  as  light,  power,  gasoline,  stamps,  etc.,  are  allo- 
cated among  the  departments  concerned.  Telephone  is 
sometimes  included  in  these  items  but  more  often  it 
is  charged  against  general  expense.  Next  the  totals 
from  the  pay  roll  book  are  placed  in  their  proper  de- 
partmental column.  It  will  be  noted  that  these  totals 
represent  the  cost  of  all  labor,  regardless  of  whether  it 
is  chargeable  or  nonchargeable  time.  The  addition  of 
the  total  overhead,  the  totals  from  the  purchase  and 
expense  book,  and  the  totals  from  the  pay  roll  book 
will  give  the  total  cost  of  operating  each  department 
for  a  month,  without  the  department  share  of  the  gen- 
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328 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY     329 

For  example,  in  the  figures  given  in  Exhibit  14,  the 
total  departmental  cost  for  hand  composition  exclusive 
of  general  expense  is  $97.83.  This  is  found  by  adding 
the  total  fixed  overhead,  $29.22,  the  totals  from  the 
purchase  and  expense  book,  22  cents,  and  the  totals 
from  the  pay  roll  book,  $68.39.  The  complete  cost  of 
operating  the  plant  exclusive  of  general  expense  will 
be  the  sum  of  the  departmental  costs.  In  this  case  the 
figures,  taken  from  Exhibit  14,  will  be: 

Hand  composition $97.83 

Cylinder  press » 11.28 

Job  press   13.50 

Machine  bindery 5.01 

Hand  bindery 9.04 

Total    $136.66 

Now  the  total  general  expense,  which  has  not  yet 
been  considered  in  our  search  for  the  cost,  is  given  in 
the  column  next  to  the  right  as  $43.70.  In  order  to 
find  how  much  of  this  should  be  charged  off  to  each 
department,  we  shall  have  to  find  the  percentage.  Di- 
viding $43.70  by  $136.76  we  get  the  result  to  be 
roughly  32  per  cent.  That  is  to  say,  the  general  ex- 
pense totals  are  32  per  cent  of  the  total  departmental 
cost  exclusive  of  general  expense.  Therefore,  in  order 
to  find  how  much  to  charge  to  hand  composition,  for 
example,  we  take  32  per  cent  of  $97.83,  the  actual  cost 
of  operating  the  hand  composition  department.  This 
amount,  $31.30,  is  added  to  $97.83  and  brings  the 
amount  up  to  $129.13  as  the  total  departmental  cost  of 
hand  composition.     In  like  manner,  each  department 


330  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

adds  to  its  operating  cost  32  per  cent  to  find  the  total 
departmental  cost. 

From  the  record  of  chargeable  and  nonchargeable 
hours  are  posted  the  chargeable  hours  of  each  depart- 
ment. Referring  again  to  Exhibit  12,  we  see  that 
there  are  221.3  hours  charged  against  hand  composi- 
tion. To  find  the  actual  cost  of  each  chargeable  hour, 
divide  the  .whole  departmental  cost  by  the  number  of 
chargeable  hours  in  that  department.  In  this  case  we 
have  $129.13  divided  by  221.3  which  gives  the  actual 
sold-hour  cost  as  approximately  58  cents. 

This  hour  cost  is  very  much  too  low,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  so  much  time  was  spent  in  hand  composition 
and  that  there  was  only  a  small  investment.  If  there 
had  been  some  machine  composition,  as  there  is  in  most 
country  shops  now,  there  would  have  been  fewer  hours 
among  which  to  distribute  the  overhead  and  the  hour 
cost  would  have  been  much  higher.  For  the  ordinary 
country  shop  where  the  cost-finding  system  has  been 
running  long  enough  to  be  accurate  in  charging  all 
things  that  should  be  charged,  the  hour  cost  in  hand 
composition  will  run  from  $1.20  up  to  $1.50  in  shops 
where  there  is  also  machine  composition.  The  com- 
posite hour  cost  for  hand  composition  as  given  by  the 
United  Typothetse  and  Franklin  Clubs  of  America  for 
1915  was  $1.53.  Many  small  shops  where  there  is  no 
machine  composition  have  divided  the  hand  composi- 
tion into  two  departments,  newspaper  and  job.  This 
operates  to  raise  the  hour  cost. 

In  order  to  find  the  labor  cost  for  each  chargeable 
hour,  we  refer  to  the  summary  sheet   (Exhibit  14) 


COST  FINDING  FOR  COUNTRY  WEEKLY    331 

again.  The  total  from  the  pay  roll  book  is  given  as 
$68.39  for  hand  composition;  the  number  of  charge- 
able hours  in  this  department  is  given  as  221.3.  Divid- 
ing the  total  hand  composition  pay  roll  by  the  number 
of  hours  will  give  the  labor  cost  as  approximately  30 
cents  per  hour.  To  find  the  overhead  cost  of  each 
chargeable  hour,  subtract  the  labor  cost  from  the  ac- 
tual cost. 

Overhead  charges  will  vary  greatly  in  the  various 
departments,  as  explained  above.  Take  the  present 
figures  for  example.  The  ratio  of  labor  cost  to  over- 
head in  hand  composition  is  30 :28 ;  in  cylinder  press, 
188:1522;  job  press,  345:655;  machine  bindery, 
345  -775  j  hand  bindery,  26:17.  The  case  of  the  cylin- 
der press  is  illustrative.  This  department  has  equip- 
ment representing  21.7  per  cent  of  the  total  invest- 
ment; naturally  it  will  have  to  bear  over  one-fifth  of 
the  total  fixed  overhead.  But  during  the  whole  month 
there  have  been  only  8.7  chargeable  hours  in  this  de- 
partment. It  is  reasonable  to  expect,  therefore,  that 
the  overhead  cost  per  chargeable  hour  will  be  very 
heavy.  In  this  case  it  was  $1,522,  while  the  operating 
cost  was  less  than.  19  cents.  It  will  easily  be  seen  that 
the  larger  the  percentage  of  the  investment  in  any 
given  department,  the  more  hours  must  be  charged 
against  the  department  or  the  machine  in  order  to 
avoid  a  burdensome  overhead. 

Summary. — The  country  printer  and  publisher  must 
know  his  costs  if  he  is  going  to  succeed.  There  is  only 
one  way  by  which  he  can  find  his  costs,  and  that  is  by 
a  reliable  cost-finding  system.    The  United  Typothetae 


332  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

and  Franklin  Clubs  of  America  have  worked  out  a 
system  of  cost  finding  especially  for  the  printer.  It 
has  been  indorsed  by  the  Federal  Trade  Commission. 
The  cost  is  not  great  and  the  burden  of  operating  the 
system  is  negligible.  Printing  and  publishing  stood 
37th  in  credit  ratings  a  few  years  ago.  It  is  appar- 
ent that  the  printers  of  the  country  need  to  adopt  busi- 
ness methods.  But  without  a  reliable  system  of  cost 
finding,  the  most  careful  attention  to  details  will  not 
bring  the  right  results.  The  American  printer  needs 
a  standard  cost-finding  system.  It  is  inexpensive ;  it  is 
easy  to  operate;  its  results  are  always  satisfactory.  It 
is  the  first  step  toward  good  business. 


APPENDIX 

Style  Sheet  for  Country  Offices 

(This  style  sheet  is  one  which  was  prepared  for  the  use 
of  students  in  the  department  of  journalism  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Wisconsin.  It  will  be  noted  that  it  is,  in  gen- 
eral, a  ''down"  style ;  that  is,  it  follows  the  growing  ten- 
dency among  newspapers  toward  less  capitalization.  It 
is  not  claimed  nor  implied  that  this  style  sheet  is  the  best 
one  that  could  be  drawn  up.  It  is  inserted  here  simply  to 
aid  the  country  editor  who  wishes  to  establish  a  standard 
for  his  office.  Whether  he  follows  all  the  rules  here  laid 
down  is  largely  immaterial ;  but  his  style  sheet  should  set 
some  fixed  standard  to  which  all  the  copy  in  his  paper 
must  conform.) 

capitalization 

Capitalise: 

All  proper  nouns,  months,  days  of  the  week;  but  not  the 
seasons. 

Principal  words  in  the  titles  of  books,  plays,  lectures,  pic- 
tures, toasts,  etc.,  including  the  initial  *'A"  or  "The" : 
"The  Man  from  Home." 

Titles  denoting  official  position,  rank,  or  occupation,  when 
.they  precede  a  proper  noun :  President  Wilson,  Judge 
John  R.  Holt  (but  John  R.  Holt,  judge  of  the  cir- 
cuit court).  Avoid  long,  awkward  titles  before  a 
name,  such  as  State  Superintendent  of  Public  Prop- 
erty Harrison. 

Distinguishing  parts  of  names  of  associations,  societies, 

leagues,  companies,    roads,   lines,   and   incorporated 

bodies:     Louisiana  State  university.  First  National 

bank,    Union   Trust   company,    Northwestern    line, 

333 


334  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Epworth  Methodist  church,  First  Wisconsin  volun- 
teers. 

Common  nouns  when  they  precede  the  distinguishing 
parts  in  names  of  associations,  societies,  companies, 
etc. :  University  of  Wisconsin,  Association  of  Col- 
legiate Alumnae,  Bank  of  Wisconsin. 

"Only  proper  noun  in  geographical  names,  except  when 
the  common  noun  precedes :  Rock  river.  Fox  lake ; 
but  Lake  Michigan,  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

Only  the  distinguishing  parts  of  names  of  streets,  ave- 
nues, boulevards,  houses,  hotels,  theaters,  stations, 
wards,  districts,  counties,  etc. ;  Pinckney  street. 
Northwestern  station.  Grand  hotel.  Third  ward.  Sec- 
ond district. 

Schools,  college,  and  other  main  divisions  of  a  university, 
but  not  departments:  College  of  Agriculture,  Law 
school;  but  department  of  astronomy. 

Names  of  religious  denominations,  and  nouns  and  pro- 
nouns of  the  deity. 

Names  of  all  political  parties :  Republican,  Bull  Moose, 
Socialist. 

Sections  of  the  country  but  not  the  points  of  the  com- 
pass :   the  North,  the  Middle  West ;  east,  northwest. 

Abbreviations  of  college  degrees:    M.  A.,  LL.D.,  Ph.  D. 

Names  of  sections  of  a  city  and  distinguishing  parts  of 
nicknames  of  states  and  cities:  the  East  side,  the 
Badger  state,  the  Windy  city. 

Distinguishing  parts  of  names  of  holidays:  Fourth  of 
July,  New  Year's  day. 

Names  of  all  races  and  nationalities :  Indians,  Caucasian, 
Negro. 

Nicknames  of  athletic  clubs  and  teams :  the  White  Sox, 
the  Gophers. 

Avoid  all  capitalisation  not  absolutely  necessary. 

Do  Not  Capitalise: 

Names  of  national,  state,  and  city  bodies,  buildings,  offi- 
cers, boa^rds,  etc. :  congress,  senate,  assembly,  depart- 
ment of  justice,  tax  commission,  budget  committee, 
postoffice,  city  hall,  common  council,  capitol. 


APPENDIX  335 

Points  of  the  compass:   east,  northwest. 

Common  religious  terms:  bible,  scriptures,  gospels, 
heathen. 

Names  of  school  or  college  studies,  except  names  of  lan- 
guages :   biology,  French. 

Titles  when  they  follow  the  name :  Henry  Wilson,  pro- 
fessor of  Greek. 

Abbreviations  of  time  of  day :  a.  m.,  p.  m.,  but  12  M. 

Names  of  college  classes:     sophomore,  senior. 

College  degrees  when  spelled  out:  bachelor  of  arts;  but 
B.  A.,  Ph.  D. 

Seasons  of  the  year :    spring,  autumn. 

Names  of  office  in  list  of  officers  as  in  election  of  officers : 
The  new  officers  are  :    John  C.  Walter,  president,  etc. 

The  following  nouns  after  a  proper  noun  :  street,  avenue, 
boulevard,  place,  building,  depot,  hotel,  station,  thea- 
ter, ward,  county,  district,  etc. 

PUNCTUATION 

Omit  period  after  "per  cent"  and  after  nicknames  (Tom, 
Sam,  Will). 

Use  a  comma  before  "and''  in  a  list :  red,  white,  and  blue. 

Punctuate  lists  of  names  with  cities  or  states  thus: 
Messrs.  Arnold  Woll,  Racine;  R.  G.  Davitt,  Beloit, 
etc.  Punctuate  list  of  names  with  offices  thus:  J. 
S.  Hall,  president;  Henry  Stoltz,  vice-president. 

Use  a  colon  after  a  statement  introducing  a  direct  quo- 
tation of  one  or  more  paragraphs,  and  begin  a  new 
paragraph  for  the  quotation.  Use  a  colon  after  "as 
follows.'' 

Never  use  a  colon  after  viz.,  to  wit,  namely,  e.  g.,  1.  e.,  ex- 
cept when  they  end  a  paragraph.  Use  colon,  dash,  or 
semicolon  before  them  and  comma  after  them,  thus : 
This  is  the  man ;  to  wit,  the  victim. 

Do  not  use  a  comma  between  a  man's  name  and  "Jr."  or 
"Sr." 

Use  apostrophe  with  year  of  college  classes :  class  of  '87, 
John  White  '01. 

Do  not  use  hyphen  in  "today"  and  "tomorrow." 


336  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Use  hyphen  in  compound  numbers :    thirty-two. 

Use  no  apostrophe  m  making  plural  of  figures :  early  '90s. 

Use  no  apostrophe  in  such  abbreviations  as  Frisco,  var- 
sity, phone,  bus. 

Use  an  em  dash  after  a  man's  name  placed  at  the  begin- 
ning in  a  series  of  interviews :  Henry  Keith — I  have 
nothing  to  say.  (Use  no  quotation  marks  with  this 
form.) 

Use  no  comma  in  "6  feet  3  inches  tall,"  "3  years  6  months 
old,"  etc. 

In  sporting  news  punctuate  thus :  Score :  Wisconsin  8, 
Chicago  3.  100-yard  dash — Smith,  first;  Hanks,  sec- 
ond. Time,  0:10  1-5.  Peters  ran  thirty  yards  to  the 
lO-yard  line. 

QUOTATION 

Quote: 

All  verbatim  quotations  when  they  are  to  be  set  in  the 
same  type  and  measure  as  the  context,  but  not  when 
they  are  to  be  in  smaller  type  or  narrower  measure. 

All  testimony,  conversation,  and  interviews  given  in  di- 
rect form,  except  when  name  of  speaker,  or,  Q.  and 
A.,  with  a  dash,  precedes,  as:  John  Keith — I  have 
nothing  to  say ;  Q. — What  is  your  name  ?  A. — Oscar 
Brown. 

Names  of  books,  dramas,  paintings,  statuary,  operas, 
songs,  subjects  of  lectures,  sermons,  toasts,  maga- 
zine articles,  including  the  initial  "A"  or  'The" :  ''A 
Man  Without  a  Country." 

Nicknames  used  before  surnames:  ''Al"  Harris,  "Bob" 
Hall. 

Use  single  quotation  marks  for  quotations  within  a  quo- 
tation. 

Use  quotation  marks  at  the  beginning  of  each  paragraph 
of  a  continuous  quotation  of  several  paragraphs,  but 
at  the  end  of  the  last  paragraph  only. 

Do  Not  QuoUt: 

Names  of  characters  in  plays:  Shylock  in  "The  Mer- 
chant of  Venice." 


APPENDIX  337 

Names  of  newspapers  or  periodicals :  the  Springfield  Re- 
publican. 
Names  of  vessels,  cattle,  dogs,  and  automobiles. 


FIGURES 

Use  Figures  For: 

Numbers  of  lOO  or  over,  except  in  the  case  of  approxi- 
mate numbers,  as  ''about  a  hundred  men/' 

Numbers  under  lOO  when  used  in  close  connection  with 
numbers  over  lOo:     133  boys  and  56  girls. 

Hours  of  the  day:   7  p.  m.,  at  8:30  this  morning. 

Days  of  the  month  omitting  d,  th,  st:  April  29,  1913; 
July  I. 

Ages :    He  was  12  years  old ;  2-year-old  James. 

All  dimensions,  prices,  degrees  of  temperature,  per 
cents,  dates,  votes,  times  in  races,  scores,  etc. :  3  feet 
long,  $3  a  yard,  78  degrees,  95  per  cent. 

All  sums  of  money  (with  dollar  mark  or  cents)  :  $24, 
$5.06,  75  cents. 

Street" and  room  numbers:  1324  Grand  avenue,  69  Uni- 
versity hall. 

Do  not  begin  a  sentence  with  Ugures;  supply  a  word  or 
spell  out, 

ABBREVIATIONS 

Abbreviate: 

The  following  titles  and  no  others,  when  they  precede  a 
name:  Rev.,  Dr.,  Mr.,  Mrs.,  M.,  Mme.,  Mile.,  Prof, 
(before  a  full  name  only;  Prof.  E.  G.  Hunt,  but  Pro- 
fessor Hunt),  and  military  titles,  except  sergeant, 
corporal,  and  chaplain.  Never  write  Pres.  Wilson 
or  Vice-Pres.  Marshall,  Sen.  Jones. 

Names  of  states,  only  when  they  follow  names  of  cities : 
Madison,  Wis.  (but  never  ''a  citizen  of  N.  Y.") 

''Number"  before  figures :     No.  24. 

Saint  and  Mount  in  proper  names,  but  not  Fort:  St. 
John,  but  Fort  Wayne. 


338  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY, 

Do  Not  Abbreviate: 

Railway,  company,  street,  avenue,  district,  etc. :  Chicago 
and  Northwestern  railway.  State  street,  A.  B.  Hall 
company.  (Railway  and  railroad  may  be  abbrevi- 
ated when  initials  are  used:     C,  M.  &  St.  P.  Ry.) 

Christian  names  like  William,  Charles,  Thomas,  John, 
Alexander. 

The  titles,  congressman,  senator,  representative,  president, 
secretary,  treasurer,  etc.,  preceding  a  name. 

Names  of  months,  except  in  date  lines. 

Years  ('97  for  1897),  except  in  referring  to  college 
classes,  etc. 

Christmas  in  the  form  of  Xmas. 

Per  cent:    15  per  cent  (not  15%). 

Cents:  75  cents  (not  75  cts.  or  75c.). 

Avoid  colloquial  abbreviations  like  "prof,"  "libe,"  "ag- 
rics." 


DATES  AND  DATE  LINES 

In  dates,  write  Jan.  12,  1914  (not  the  12th  of  January,  or 

12  January). 
Punctuate  date  lines  thus:  MADISON,  Wis.,  Feb.  11.— 
Fire  destroyed  the,  etc. 

Omit  state  after  names  of  prominent  cities.    Abbre- 
viate months  of  more  than  five  letters.    Omit  year 
and  d,  st,  th  (after  figures). 
Begin  the  story  immediately  after  dash  and  on  same 
line. 


ADDRESSES 

Write  addresses  thus : 

Frank  D.  Miles,  136  Gilman  street.    Hiram  Swenk, 
Cuba  City,  Wis. 
Omit  "at"  and^^of"  before  address.     Do  not  abbreviate 

or  capitalize  street,  avenue,  etc.    Spell  out  numbered 

streets  up  to  looth. 


APPENDIX  339 


TITLES 

Always  give  initials  or  first  names  of  persons  the  first 

time  they  appear  in  a  story. 
Never  use  only  one  initial ;  use  both  or  first  name :    J.  H. 

Ward,  John  H.  Ward,  or  John  Ward  (not  J.  Ward). 
Never  use  Mr.  with  initials  or  first  name:     Mr.  Ward 

(not  Mr.  John  H.  Ward). 
Give  first  name  of  unmarried  women ;  not  initials  only : 

Miss  Mary  R.  Snow  (not  Miss  M.  R.  Snow). 
Always  use  the  title  Miss  before  an  unmarried  woman's 

name  and  Mrs.  before  a  married  woman's. 
Begin    list   of   unmarried    women    with    '^Misses,"    and 

one  of  married  women  with  *'Mesdames,"  giving  first 

name  of  unmarried  women,  and  husband's  first  name 

or  initials  with  married  women's  names.    Begin  lists 

of  men's  names  with  "Messrs." 
Supply  "the"  before  Rev.;  supply  Mr.  if  first  name  is 

omitted :    the  Rev.  S.  R.  Hart,  or  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hart 

(not  Rev.  S.  R.  Hart,  the  Rev.  Hart,  or  Rev.  Hart). 
Write  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Arthur  S.  Miles   (not  Arthur  S. 

Miles  and  wife). 
Write  Prof,  and  Mrs.  Henry  Wilton  (not  Mr.  and  Mrs. 

Prof.  Henry  Wilton). 
Give  the  title  professor  only  to  members  of  faculty  of 

professorial  rank :    use  "Mr."  when  necessary  with 

name  of  instructor  or  assistant. 
Avoid  long  titles,  such  as  Superintendent  of  Public  In- 
struction Moore. 
Never  use  the  title  "Honorable"  or  "Hon." 


PREPARATION  OF  COPY 

Write  legibly;  use  a  typewriter  whenever  possible. 
Never  write  on  both  sides  of  the  sheet. 
Double  space  your  typewritten  and  longhand  copy. 
Use  Sy2  XII  soft  white  copy  paper  for  all  your  work. 
Begin  your  story  about  the  middle  of  the  first  page. 


340  THE  COUNTRY  WEEKLY 

Number  sheets  at  the  top  of  the  page  and  inclose  the 

number  in  a  circle. 
Put  the  end  mark  (#)   at  the  close  of  every  complete 

story. 
Inclose  all  quotation  marks  in  half  circles. 
Print  all  names  in  longhand  copy. 
Underscore  "u's''  and  overscore  ''n's"  in  longhand  copy. 

PARAGRAPHS 

Indent  each  paragraph  about  two  inches. 

Remember  that  the  length  of  paragraphs  in  newspapers 

does  not  normally  exceed  lOO  words,  and  generally 

ranges  from  25  to  75  words. 
Put   an    important   idea    at   the   beginning   of    the   first 

sentence  of  each  paragraph. 
Avoid   beginning  successive   paragraphs   with  the  same 

word,  phrase,  or  construction. 
Don't  put  important  details  in  the  last  paragraphs  where 

they  may  be  cut  off  in  the  make-up. 
Make  separate  paragraphs  of  introductory  statements  like 

*'He  said  in  part,"  'The  report  is  as  follows,"  and 

end  them  with  a  colon. 
Set  off  as  a  separate  paragraph  a  direct  quotation  of 

more  than  one  sentence  without  explanatory  mate- 
rial, at  the  beginning  of  a  story. 

SENTENCES 

Make  evident  the  construction  in  every  sentence  so  that 

it  may  be  read  rapidly. 
Avoid  choppy,  disconnected  short  sentences. 
Don't  overload  the  first  sentence  of  a  summary  lead,  by 

crowding  in  unessential  details. 
Put  an  important  idea  at  the  beginning  of  every  sentence. 

WORDS 

Avoid  words  that  are  likely  to  be  unfamiliar  to  the  aver- 
age reader,  unless  you  explain  them  in  your  story. 


APPEJsfDIX  341 

Don't  use  trite  phrases. 

Use  superiatives  sparingly. 

Use  slang  only  when  circumstances  demand  it. 

Find  the  one  noun  to  express  the  idea,  the  one  adjective, 

if  necessary,  to  qualify  it,  and  the  one  verb  needed 

to  give  it  life. 

ACCURACY 

Remember  that  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth, 
interestingly  presented,  makes  the  best  news  story. 

Don't  try  to  make  cleverness  a  substitute  for  truth. 

Don't  forget  that  faking  is  lying. 

Realize  that  every  mistake  you  make  hurts  someone. 

Remember  that  what  you  write  for  newspaper  publica- 
tion is  read  by  hundreds  and  helps  to  influence  pub- 
lic opinion. 

Verify  all  names,  initials,  addresses,  etc. 

Get  all  the  news ;  don't  stop  with  half  of  it. 

Don't  give  rumors  as  facts. 

Be  fair  and  unbiased ;  give  both  sides  of  the  case. 

Don't  misrepresent  by  playing  up  a  statement  that,  taken 
from  its  context,  is  misleading. 

Don't  make  the  necessity  for  speed  an  excuse  for  care- 
lessness and  inaccuracy. 


INDEX 


Adams,      Samuel     Hopkins, 

247,  248 
Advertising,  appeal  of,  244 

basis  of  charge,  249 

converting     the     business 
man,  257 

function  of,  242 

increasing  the  rate,  252 

local,  257 

mail  order,  281 

make-up,  181 

reputable     representatives, 

service  of,  242 
triple  field  of,  244 
triple  service  of,  242,  243 
typography  of,  261  ^ 
using  exchanges,  181 
Advertising  News,  118,  266 
Advertising  your  own  busi- 
ness, 263 
Agriculture  and  the  country 

v^eekly,  9 
Agricultural  editor,  I  io 
Allen,  A.  F.,  149 
American  Press  Association, 
V7 

Balancing  the  page,  174 
Bargain  day  rate,  225 


Barry  Record,  230 
Beckman,  F.  W.,  96 
Bell,  Ovid,  142 
Bodine,  T.  V.,  163 
Brisbane,  Arthur,  243,  278 
Brown,  Buford  O.,  90,  91 
Burke,  Edmund,  154 

"Cartridge"  lead,  46        , 
Cash-in-advance,  233 
Censoring  advertising,  246 
Change     of     advertising, 

251 
Chargeable    and   noncharge- 

able  time,  309 
Chicago  Herald,  68       .  . 
Childress,  E.  H.,  22^ 
Chilton  Times,  175 
Circulation,  corner  stone  of 

popularity,  215 
Circulation  campaigns,  218 
Circulation  contests,  220 
Clarke,  Lyle  C,  250 
''Clothesline"  lead,  45 
Clubbing  offers,  223 
Collecting  subscription 

money,  236 
College  men  and  the  country 

weekly,  132 
Collier's  Weekly,  16 


343 


344 


INDEX 


Common  errors,  60,  61,  62, 

63 

Community  betterment,  138 
Community    club,    114,    115, 

116 
Community     service,     scope 

of,  139 
Community  survey,  268 
Community  welfare,  113 
Compound  sentence,  55 
Cooperation    with    advertis- 
ers, 277 
Corner  boxes,  178 
Correspondence,        personal 

touch  in,  90 
Correspondence  and  circula- 
tion, 74 
Correspondents,      remunera- 
tion for,  92,  93 
instructions  to,  87,  88,  89 
Cost,  elements  of,  299 
Cost     finding,     fundamental 

principles,  302 
Cost    system,    definition    of, 
297 
need  of,  288 
objections  to,  291 
Country  Gentleman,  224 
Country  weekly,  the  place  of 

the,  99 
Cut  rates,  225 

DaJia,  Charles  A.,  19,  6y 
Definition    of  ^cost    finding 

system,  297 
Departmentizing,  170 
Deseret  Evening  Ne'{vs^  68 


Editor,  agricultural,  no 
in  politics,  137 
personality  of,  123 
qualities  to  win  popularity, 
126,  127,  128 
respect,  124,  125,  126 
the  subsidized,  135 
training  and  equipment  of, 

129 
type  of  service,  116,  117 
Editorial  harmony,  140 
Editorial    page,    advantages 
of,  151 
features  of,  162 
objections  to,  145 
Editorial  responsibility,  133 
Editorials,  range  of  subjects, 

155 
types  of,  159 
Elwell,  F.  H.,  299 
Emphasis  in  lead,  43 
Exchanges,  use  of,  112 

Fairness  in  handling  news, 

64 
Family,  typical  American,  4 
Farm,  the,  and  the  country 

weekly,  95 
Farm   news,   as  investment, 
117 
from  correspondents,  108 
what  it  is,  102 
Field  of  country  weekly,  lo 
"Fine  writing,"  56 
Flat  rate  advertising,  250 
Follow-up  letters,  237 
Foreign  classified  wants,  280 


INDEX 


345 


Former-resident  subscribers, 

226 
Foster,  Warren  D.,  5 
Fourth  Estate,  283 
Front  page,  contents  of,  173 
Front  page  advertising,  180, 

183 
Front  page  news,  172 
Fulton  Gazette,  237 
Function  of  advertising,  242 

Greeley,  Horace,  17,  76,  136 
Gresham's  law,  247 

Hadley  Clipper,  37 
Handling  county  news,  80 
Harger,  Charles  M.,  7 
Hasbrouck,  J.  L.,  81 
Haynes,  Roscoe  E.,  169 
Headline,  building  a,  202 

cross  line,  197 

drop-line,  194 

function  of,  193 

hanging  indention,  196 

kinds  of,  194 
Headline  units,  201 
Headline  writing,  rules  for, 

204,  205 
Headlines,  *1azy,"  205 

pyramid,  196 

specific  faults,  206-214 
Heads    for   country   weekly, 

197 
Herbert,  B.  B.,  107,  119 
Home  paper,  3 
Home  print  vs.  ready-print, 
279 


Horton  Headlight,  235 
Hour  cost,  322 
Howe,  Ed.,  69,  151 
Huse,  Norris  A.,  278 

Impartiality,  65 

"Index  prohibitorum,"  248 

Interviews,  105 

Irving,  Sir  Henry,  141 

Job  ticket,  305 
Job  tracer,  307 
Joerns,  Arnold,  244 

Kansas,  country  weekly,  sur- 
vey, 12 
Keeley,  James,  68 

Label   headline,   193 
*Xazy"  headlines,  205 
Leads  in  the  country  weekly, 

47 
Lincoln  Courier-Herald,  221 
Live  advertiser,  the,  262 
Local  advertising,  257 

service  in,  259 
Local-rate  card,  254 

Mail-order  advertising,  281 
Make-up,  aspects  of,  165 

contrast     and     symmetry, 
168 

correspondence,  82 
Manchester  Press,  234 
Mayes,  Will  H.,  131 
McKey,  Claude  D.,  75 
Middleburgh  Post,  216 


346 


INDEX 


Model  rate  card,  272 
Moore,  W.  Clement,  227 
Multiple  source  story,  39 

Name  plate,  178 
National  advertising,  264 
National    Printer 'Journalist, 

119 
Need  of  a  cost  system,  288 
New  methods  in  correspond- 
ence, 79 
News,  a  definition  of,  17 

classification  of,  24 

features  in  the,  36 

getting  larm,  105 

neglected  values,  32,  34,  35 

scope  of,  17,  18 
News  policy,  63 
News  proportion,  96 
News  sources,  25,  26,  2"/ 

covering,  2y,  28 
Newspaper,  the,  and  the  far- 
mer, 97 
Newspapers,    in   the   Middle 
West,  9 

in  the  United  States,  2 
News  story  leads,  42 
News  story  structure,  41 
News  values^  18-21 
New  York  Tribune,  246 
Norfolk  News,  278 

*'One-man  shop,"  11 
Opportunity   in   the   country 

field,  141  ^' 
Organization  of  news  story, 

48 


Paragraphing,  58 
Pay-roll  book,  325 
Perkins,  George  D.,  135 
Personal  solicitation,  226 
Pink  Press,  22y 
Pleasing  the  public,  215,  216 
Porte,  R.  T.,  223 
Position    of    advertisements, 

185 

Premiums,  219 

Price  advertising,  260 

Price  of  subscriptions,  229 

Printer-publisher  a  manufac- 
turer, 287 

Problems  of  country  weekly, 
II 

Productive  and  nonproduc- 
tive labor,  309 

Proofreading,  192 

Provincialism,  6 

Psychology  of  contests,  222 

Psychology  of  higher  rate, 
253 

Quality  circulation,  245 
Qualities   of   a   good   adver- 
tisement, 243 

Rate  agreement,  254 
Rate  card,  272 
Ready-print  farm  news,  116 
Renewals,  system  in,  238 
Reputable  advertising  repre- 
sentatives, 277 
Robbins,  M.  C,  239 
Rural-mindedness,  6 
Russell,  Charles  Edward,  8 


INDEX 


347 


Scott,  Walter  Dill,  147 
Seitz,  Don  C,  152 
Selling"  the  paper,  216 
Service  of  advertising,  242 
Sliding  rate  advertising,  251 
Slogans,  178 
Space-grafters,  255 
Special  representatives,  83 
Spencer,  E.  M.,  289 
Spot  advertising-,  268 
Stacey,  Roy  A.,  133,  159 
Starring,  George  A.,  98 
Sticking  to  the  rate,  273 
Structure,       unconventional, 

49 
Style  in  nev^s  stories,  52 
Style  sheet,  86,  333 
Subscription  builders,  228 
Subscription  price,  229 

in  Wisconsin,  231 
Summary    of    departmental 

hour  costs,  325 
Swenson,  Theodore,  137 
Sw^orn  circulation,  276 

Telephone      new^s-gathering, 

83 

Thorpe,  Merle,  12 
Time  ticket,  319 

monthly  summary,  321 
Tone  of  news,  70 


Training  correspondents,  85 
Triple    field    of   advertising, 

244 
Trite  expressions,  57 
Typical  American  family,  4 
Typography   of    advertising, 

261 

Unifying  the  paper,  189 

Vasaly,  Peter  J.,  225 

Wagenseller,  George  W.,  75, 

216 
Wakefield  Daily  Item,  255 
Wanamaker,  John,  258 
Watson,  W.  R.,  22 
Week,  schedule  of  work  for, 

31 
Weekly  paper's  public,  5 
Wheelock,  H.  M.,  ^y 
Whitaker,  George  M.,  11 1 
White,  L.  M.,  153 
White,  William  Allen,  151 
White  inch,  249 
Why  of  cost  finding,  286 
Wilcox,  Delos  F.,  21 
Wiley,  Louis,  172 
Wisconsin     State     Journal, 

84 

Words,  choice  of,  55 


(I) 


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